I’ve got another one for the file: turns out that the cheap chorus guitar effects pedal I bought sounds better than all the fancy ones, based on a couple of hours of YouTube demos I’ve listened to. Look, it isn’t as funny as watching the professional musician and the third-generation music store owner not be able to tell the difference between a $2500 custom shop guitar and a $250 Asian knockoff… but close!

@FossilFishy – Hoping for illness… oh yes, I understand that one very well. I’m now 20 months out from my illness that triggered my current fatigue problem, and for the first 8-12 months of that I was in and out of doctors and specialists and all sorts of tests. It was always disappointing when something was negative – even when it was technically good news. I’m not anaemic! My heart’s in excellent condition! Those nodules aren’t cancer! My kidneys are in good order! Yay! Good news! But then… what IS this fucking thing? At least if I’d had a heart condition I would know what to do next. But no, I just have some stupid vague Syndrome. It’s like battling mist.

Oh indeed Alethea. It’s so draining knowing that something is wrong and having no way of addressing it even mentally because you don’t know what it is. And you can’t talk about it because all that gets you is a slightly suspicious sympathy at best.

I went through the Sleep Clinic thing a couple of years ago. Despite what they found, they still recommended me to buy a very expensive PAP machine. I discussed the findings with my GP, and asked whether it wouldn’t be more sensible to try fixing the blocked sinuses first, before spending a fortune on something that I was fairly certain would ensure I would never get any sleep ever again (a face mask tied to my face? Attached to a noisy machine?! Really?!!!).

So he prescribed Avamys. It worked. I stopped snoring after the first three days, and now only need a squirt in each nostril once a month or so to keep the sinuses unblocked (more often if I catch a cold). So I sleep a lot better (not exactly soundly; I’m in too much pain for that and the restless leg syndrome is fairly disturbing, too) and so does hubby. Except when he is snoring, of course! :p

I also know what it is to keep going back to the doctors for years (decades, even) without an answer. You have my sympathy. It is bloody frustrating. Meantime, what is one to do to solve the problem? It doesn’t vanish just because no-one has yet given it a name. I am grateful I did eventually get a diagnosis for almost everything, even the one (AF) that took 32 years. But the chronic exhaustion? That gets blamed, variously, on everything else. Glandular fever. Sleep apnœa. Chronic pain. Restless legs. Arrhythmias. Irritable bowel. Etc., etc. ad nauseam

The only answer I have found to address it is to rest as often as I possibly can. Afternoon naps. Early nights. Not much of an answer, I’m afraid. I’d dearly love to have a job to go to, but what employer wants such an unreliable employee?

I see that the 9-5 office thing has totally fucked-up my participation here.
I’m still reading Lounge and Thunderdome.
*hugs*
and
*kicks*
distribute as needed
—-
ॐ
thanks for the coffee
—
ednaz
A time machine would be useful.

So, I work as a custodian for an elementary school, which has an attached daycare service. Yesterday, while I was taking out some trash, I saw that some of the children from the daycare had gotten hold of a bunch of boxes from the recycling and were laughingly playing at panhandler. They enjoined me to join their game and I told them I was busy. When I came back in, they called to me again, so I told them a bit sharply that I was busy, they ought to choose a different game, and they would put the recycling back where they found it and not play with it anymore. I assumed this would be the end of the matter until this afternoon, when I was called on the carpet by the principal and the head of the daycare. I acknowledged that it was not technically my position to do this, and I ought to have taken it to one of the daycare staff, which I would do in the future, and apologized. They then spent half an hour alternately lecturing and pretending to be friendly, insinuated that my actions made them concerned for the safety of the children, and then demanded that I should take any concerns to the daycare workers. When I pointed out that I had suggested that myself at the beginning of the conversation, the principal said that I sounded ‘condescending’ and maybe she would have to talk to my supervisor, because the conversation (which I spent agreeing with them) was going nowhere and I had an attitude problem. Eventually they let me go, whereupon I gave in to the panic attack set off by the similarity of that conversation to the endless I-can’t-win-no matter-what-I-say conversations that I had with my prior boss which all ended with the threat of firing until the one that ended with me being fired. (Thiat job is also the source of my gastric ulcer).

He thinks he “needs” a handgun because “criminals won’t obey the law, and they’ll still have guns.”

*double facepalm*

Never mind that the criminals took those guns from law-abiding citizens, and that if guns weren’t available to steal, they wouldn’t have guns! (I mean, DUH!)

He doesn’t understand why I don’t want one near me. I’ve tried to explain. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand the level of fear I have when men insist that they “need” to be armed “just in case”. I heard so much of that “building an arsenal just in case” talk with That Guy that it’s just… no. It’s nowhere near an acceptable argument. (And doubly unacceptable once the words “zombie apocalypse” are uttered.)

I don’t want to break up with him.

But I can’t be with him if he’s going to persist with this gun-nuttery.

Oh, no, WMDKitty! That is so horrible. I really cannot understand the gun-fetish some people have. They horrify me, yet I was, as a child, taught gun safety and how to shoot by my father with a BB gun and paper targets in the back garden. I was always terrified that a bird would inadvertently swoop down between the gun and the target just as someone fired…

None of my children has ever expressed a desire to even hold a gun (except for water pistols); their granddad’s replica (non-shootable) gun collection never fascinated them. We watch the TV here in Australia and are nightly amazed by the news coming out of the USA.

You are right to be afraid, I would say, having read the appalling shooting statistics related to legitimate gun ownership in the USA, never mind gun crime.

Ban guns from private homes and the streets, and anyone sporting a firearm is automatically a criminal and can be arrested before they hurt or kill someone; the police don’t have to wait until it is too late.

[me]: Oh, thank you so much for blaming gun violence on the mentally ill. It’s so wonderful to be blamed for shit that I have nothing to do with, and am vocally protesting against.
It is NOT “mostly criminals and nutjobs”. Most gun related deaths are the product of a domestic dispute or an “accidental” firing. You wanna blame me and others like me for those, too?

There is so much hugginess to be distributed on this (and the end of the last) thread that I don’t even know where to begin… But please, all with known/unknown medical conditions, various sorrows, etc. … – help yourselves!!!

More individually:ednaz, you write beautiful words. Please do so more often (and I agree with everything you said about Improbable Joe, Tony, Ogvorbis, etc. …).Ogvorbis and WMDKitty, extra-special hugs for you (or scritches, as wanted).Dalillama re: work situation – I am so pissed off on your behalf right now, but I offer support and also a few extra hugs.FossilFishy, I’m interested in music, and I can also record Husband for some background honk-shoo symphonic accompaniment, if required for harmonies.Tony – for what it’s worth, A seems to already have lumped all gods into one category, which means, when the time comes, he’ll be rejecting them all all at once, too. ;) That’s maybe a bit too much hope, but I like his hobbies, too, and I hope things continue to go well!
andParrowing – what everyone else said. And I add my own voice – you’re not worthless or invisible and I enjoy our exchanges. I value your opinions and experiences and I hope to see you here often. (For what it’s worth, it’s easy to feel ignored and invisible here sometimes, because of the time lags and the times when nobody’s around but you really, really want an answer. But. People read eventually, so it takes a bit of patience, sometimes – even when you don’t want to be patient.)

+++

Have huge amounts of laundry to do before more. Washing machine breaks down.
Right.

Good morning
So, first day of carnival today so I took two little pirates to kindergarten.
Also my last day of classes. Then one exam, a term paper and another exam

David

There are professional thesis ghostwriters out there who do that shit for a living.

And the cool thing is, you can’t even sue them.
But we talked about Schavan in class today. The case isn’t quite clear-cut. For most of the things you could say they’re shoddy work (like quoting something that somebody else has quoted already and only giving the person who already quoted as a source) and some things are actually debatable, like taking an idea from Hannah Arendt, saying that you got it from her, rewording it and not putting it in quotation marks (cause it isn’t a direct quote). That’s debatable. So, at least a considerable amount of academics think that while her work is a bit shoddy and not quite up to standard, it’s also a bit of a strech to say that she maliciously plagiarized.

Parrowing
Hugs. You ain’t invisible and you and useless. That’s the monkey-brain* talking.
*That’s the name I gave my depressive episodes. The part that’s lying to me.

Fossil Fishy
Hope you can get treatment soon. But I remember how I felt after the Hashimoto’s diagnosis: First like shit (damn, I’m broken, can’t be fixed) but then I also recognized how this explained my overall bad health which added to the depressive* moods and everything.

*I’m using depressive to describe my own state. I think I’m “bordering” on depression. I can clearly recognize many elements of clinical depression in my “low” periods, but I can also clearly recognize important differences like the ability to kick myself out of them.

Ogvorbis
Hugses
You’re such a great person. If I read you write about your family, your wife and your kids, how you’re clearly making their lives better, I can see somebody I wished Icould meet in meatspace.

+++
Oh, on the plus side:
I have a new tablet and it talks to my laptop, so the thing I actually wanted it for, an easy way to take all the PDFs to college is happening.
And yesterday the little one went swimming with Mr.’s aunt and it went very well, so there’s another person who is willing and able to take care of them once in a while.

+++
Talking about this, we had a short conversation of people are idiots.
She made a remark about “Well, you know, I as a childless person who also despises childeren” and I was like “Hmmm, I know the first one, but the second one is new to me”. So she told me about a colleague who’d been visiting her and whose child had started jumping on her new couch with the muddy shoes on and when she’d asked said colleague to please call her daughter back the colleague was offended. It was something she as a childless person couldn’t understand and she should have said that she didn’t like children. Which adds insult to injury because the aunt isn’t childfree as in “I never wanted sprogs and am happy that way” but childless as in “I had a tubal pregnancy and ended up infertile”.
And seriously?
My kids are allowed to jump on my couch.
My kids are not allowed to jump on my couch wearing shoes.
My kids are totally not allowed to jump on anybody else’s couch, wearing shoes or not, unless that person explicitly invites them to.
Why do people hate their own children so much that they don’t teach them the basics of social interaction and politeness?

Ah, but Giliell, it is apparently bad to say no to children. They must be limitless! No borders! Free! Creativity! Genius! And of course, every parent wants to believe that their child is (has the potential to be) a genius. Putting limits on that is a bad thing. /snark
Personally, I think it makes it difficult for the children to interact socially, especially later in life – if you’re used to everyone saying ‘yes’, doing exactly what you want whenever you want, and not facing any consequences (instead, watching others get shit for your actions), it’s going to be difficult when you realize that the world isn’t always going to work the way you want it to. A recipe for a lot of bitterness, anger and frustration, in my opinion.

My children likelove jumping on couches, too. They are never allowed to do it with shoes on (esp. muddy!!). And yes, they don’t do it in other people’s houses unless expressly invited to do so. And even if invited, I remind them that they are not at home and perhaps should be a little more careful (because it’s one thing to jump on the couch; it’s another to play the usual jumping couch games and fall off and break something in a house not yours…).

Snip has been barfing a lot the past few days. Hacking up hairballs and not passing his food. So this morning I find a little blood on the floor that was probably hacked out. He’s also had really watery stool (the complete package!) So I bring him to the Emergency Vet.

$600 later I find out no blockages, he’s very dehydrated, and he has to be kept on antibiotics (just in case) and Pepcid AC (which is silly to me, but hey whatever.)

I was really really upset yesterday cause he wasn’t keeping food down. Now I’m just annoyed, since he cost me $600 to find out that it’s nothing critical…

I hate, despise and abhor Excel. May it die a thousand deaths and be purged from every computer forever. It should only stay in memories of humans, something to be whispered about late in the night, so that kids know never ever again to think up something as horrible as Excel.

Knitting videos are fantastic! One of them taught me how to do intarsia. And yarn-store owners are almost always so friendly and helpful. I guess that’s natural enough given that most of them are passionate about making things for other people!

I don’t know what intarsia is, but I totally agree! I am such a beginner but I’m going to start my first cable knit project.

carlie
Thanks for the site, I’m not sure if I’ve run across it before. I only just learned that there are two ways! I still don’t know what the advantages/differences really are.

FossilFishy

Knitting is like that, transforming materials into a thing with a new function.

The satisfaction upon completion is definitely my favorite part.

Dalillama
Geez, I’m sorry you have to deal with such jerks. *hugs*

Deborahbell!
I remember you! I also remember idly wondering about your welfare from time to time. So sorry the work situation sucks. I hate to say so, but “wait a little longer” seems to be the best advice I can give, too. Hope you find something better very soon.

Ogvorbis
Hugs upon hugs. Sorry it was a rough night : (

Giliell and rq
I’ve read that kids without boundaries early on also don’t learn proper impulse control. It’s not something we’re born with, and if our parents (or other guardian) don’t teach us, who will? I wish I could tell why people don’t teach this stuff to their kids. It’s probably partly what rq said, about not limiting them!!!1!!11 but also I think it’s just…a fear that your kids will resent you. I don’t know what my Obnoxious Cousin’s problem is, but I do know that I wish I didn’t feel the need to avoid her and her kid at every opportunity. I just don’t need to hear them scream at each other or tolerate the small one’s crocodile tears and screeches at the littlest provocation. It’s astonishing how good someone so young can be at manipulation when it’s rewarded every fucking time she tries it.

Anyway.

Good morning. My head hurts still but I’ve started my day earlier than normal so maybe I’ll be more productive. : p

My son turned 6 today. I told him about the iPad app that you can use to show how the earth looked in the past. He said, ‘You mean like 10 million years ago before people were here? And of course god, because god isn’t real.’

That high should carry me through the day.

Beatrice – Microsoft products are anathema and everytime one of them screws with my sense of well being, I wish Microsoft would be shattered into myriad monopolistic shards. In a kindly way.

Dalillama, that sounds horrible. I wish I could offer something more than sympathy. I’ve been in very similar no-win situations to that.

Ogvorbis, I’m really sorry about your bad night.

My internet is incredibly shaky (it’s gone in and out several times just while typing this short comment), so I’ll continue to not be around here much. I am reading, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to get a page to load and read than actually try to participate in a conversation.

I am also essentially snowed in out on these country roads. Bad internet + no physical escape to go wandering is making for a deeply bothered hermit.

Ogvorbis
*extra-special hugs*
It was not your fault.
I’m sorry you had a bad night. :(

clayhale
Pure awesomeness. My Eldest is 5 and a half, and he recently told me that Of course he believes in god, because he has a smart brain! ;) Work in progress. (He also knows that dinosaurs lived millions and millions of years ago and are now found as fossils, because he has a smart brain…)

Portia
*hugs* and Tylenol – I hope the headache is a wake-up kind of headache and that the rest of your day progresses with continuing improvements!

Thanks, rq
Unfortunately, it lasted the night and is hanging on by its fingernails. I have a warm pack on it and am feeling a little better.

Joe
I’m reading up on the “reminder for difficult threads” thread and Giliell made a comment that ties right in with what we were talking about re: digging vs. not digging.

If I say “hey, you stepped on my foot”, I’m not accusing you of assault. Say “sorry, my fault, I didn’t want to hurt you” and we’re done. Start getting defensive about me accusing you of assault and me putting my toes under your foot or that it couldn’t have hurt anyway and we have a problem.

Thanks so much to everyone for the kind words. I am feeling better today. Not perfect, but better. It’s easier for me to accept that maybe people aren’t lying to me when they say nice things than it was last night.

iJoe:

Shit Parrowing… I was thinking the other day that I miss you on Twitter, if you don’t comment here I’ll be really sad.

This helped me immensely. I sometimes feel like no matter what I do, I don’t get noticed, so I might as well not do anything. Knowing that people notice when I’m not around really helps. I will be back on Twitter and I will keep posting here. Thanks again to everyone for making me feel special and not worthless.

*

Ogvorbis:

I’m so sorry to hear about your rough night. *hugses*

*

Dalillama:

I was just raging on your behalf. I’m sorry you have to deal with people like that at your workplace.

*

deborahbell! I was still lurking when you last were posting and I hoped you’d come back. Yay! I’m sorry that I don’t have any advice for you, but I do think you’ve handled this situation very well.

*

That’s awesome, clayhale! And that’s awesome too, rq! Even if you don’t agree with his conclusions, he sounds like a thinker!

*

And now I’m off to the Thunderdome… I think… if I can get up the courage to post… I’m scared!

Part of my job is reviewing software (code) written by others. It is supposed to a collaborative effort, with each of us reviewing the others, in a (fairly-)rapid iterative development process. Which means you actually do reviews, respond to comments / questions, and so on, with fairly quick turn-around.

One guy (a senior developer) doesn’t seem to get it. He almost never does a review, his reviews aren’t too helpful (tend to be superficial), and his own code is — how shall I put this? — “unique”. And typically late.

I recently got very annoyed when he (finally!) put in a lot of changes for review, but failed to take into account any previous reviews, and in particular, complaints about the “uniqueness” of his code. He then asked “Why this poor quality? [sic]” (In context, he obviously meant “Why is this poor quality?”, where the “this” was refering to his “unique” style.)

I’m still trying to compose a sensible reply, but sofar my response is thus:

Check your patch for basic style violations, details of which can be found in Documentation/CodingStyle. Failure to do so simply wastes the reviewers time and will get your patch rejected, probably without even being read.

Maintainability includes concepts of modularity, understandability, changeability, testability, reusability, and transferability from one development team to another. These do not take the form of critical issues at the code level. Rather, poor maintainability is typically the result of thousands of minor violations with best practices in documentation, complexity avoidance strategy, and basic programming practices that make the difference between clean and easy-to-read code vs. unorganized and difficult-to-read code.

▶ In short:

▷ Such code cannot be (easily) read by others;

▷ Its haphazardness suggests even the author is unsure what it does.

▷ It will be difficult for anyone (else) to modify.

▷ It increases costs to [company] because it is un-maintainable.

▷ It increases a project’s time because it slows down grey- and white-box Testing, and it makes it difficult for others to help fix any issues found.

▶ Much of what I am complaining about could be avoided at the time you write the code. It’s not an after-the-fact step. I write readable code. So does [person A]. So did [person B]. So do the people [at another site]. And on and on. Literally thousands of others write readable code from the start. We do not throw any old stuff together and then “polish” its appearance later.

▶ It is am embarassement to your colleagues. No-one else in the project writes code like that. I am embarassed to have my name associated with it.

The key word is “Maintainability”, or as I put it earlier, you “need to Help the Reader!”

────────────────────────────────────────────────

Grumble, grumble, grumble …

(I hope this posts Ok, Preview is giving me odd results for the hyperlinks, with pointless and ugly Big Blue Text about where there is supposed to be a nice hyperlink. I suppose it could be some weird setting in my browser, but it hasn’t been happening previously…)

Moments of Mormon Madness and Moments of Mormon Media Manipulation related to the Boy Scouts:

… an official of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday he would recommend that the church withdraw from the Boy Scouts of America if the church is forced to register homosexual Scouts or to register those who will not adhere to “Duty to God” provisions of the Scout Oath and Law.As the largest sponsoring religious organization in the Boy Scouts…[from a June 1991 article in Deseret News]

… The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is carefully assessing the consequences of this policy change on the Church’s program to build and strengthen young men, but it has not commented on it and a decision will not be made until we have assessed all of the implications. We caution others not to speculate about our position or to assume that individual Latter-day Saints inside or outside the Scouting movement speak for the Church. Neither has the Church launched any campaign either to effect or prevent a policy change….[from an article posted on the Newsroom page of an official LDS website]

I don’t know why they don’t just have their current Prophet, Seer and Revelator ask God what to do.

(I hope this posts Ok, Preview is giving me odd results for the hyperlinks, with pointless and ugly Big Blue Text about where there is supposed to be a nice hyperlink. I suppose it could be some weird setting in my browser, but it hasn’t been happening previously…)

FWIW I get that too. Previewed hyperlinks are Big and Blue and float to the left instead of staying inline with the body of the text, but they look OK in the final comment.

It seems to be coming from style.css, which contains
a {
color: #1772AF;
text-decoration: none;
}

which sets the Bigness, and#div-comment-preview span.comment-link {
float: left;
}
.comment-link {
float: right;
margin-left: 20px;
padding-top: 5px;
text-align: right;
}
which explains the floating.
Someone might want to think again about those float: and margin-left: settings, at a minimum.
Setting fonts to absolute pixel sizes is also rarely a good idea; better to do it relative to other text using em units.

Good question. It’s the religious right that is wrong on this issue, of course.

The socially conservative Family Research Council asked supporters to help it oppose the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act because, the group says, the “real abuse” is how much it will waste taxpayer dollars.

In an email alert on Monday, the FRC decried the VAWA (“which, ironically, is supported by the same administration that wants to put women in front-line combat!”) as an “abuse of taxpayer dollars” that “does more to promote a radical agenda than it does to help women.”

Schlafly, head of a right-wing group called the Eagle Forum, dismissed VAWA as a law “used to fill feminist coffers and to lobby for feminist objectives and laws.”

I will just note that the Eagle Forum is crazy strong in Utah. It even played a part in the story line of several episodes of Big Love. Here’s one example.

The Family Research Council is taking VAWA opposition so seriously that it’s told congressional Republicans that this vote will be scored — if they want to maintain a high rating on religious right scorecards, they’ll have to vote against reauthorization. … folks like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Marco Rubio — [voted] against even debating the bill.

… an official of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday he would recommend that the church withdraw from the Boy Scouts of America if the church is forced to register homosexual Scouts or to register those who will not adhere to “Duty to God” provisions of the Scout Oath and Law.

When I heard that the BSA was reconsidering their reconsideration regarding homosexuality, my first thought was to wonder if the Mormons had anything to do with that.

And, given my history with scouting, and my Mormon pack leader, there is no way I can come to this subject in anything approaching a rational manner. So, fuck you, you sanctimonious godbotting assholes!

Bill O’Reilly fails, again, to check his facts. He went on and on about how NBC was all over the waterboarding story, but has not covered the story of the drone attacks. Bill says NBC is not covering the drone story because they want to protect President Obama. YouTube link to Bill O’Reilly broadcast in which he repeats his misinformation several times.

blf, you need to read the Klingon Programming Mantras*… and make sure the mildly deranged penguin is aimed at the senior developer and away from you.

* Hm. They don’t seem to be together in one place anywhere on the Internet. Here’s some copypasta, then:
“By filing this bug report you have challenged the honor of my family. PREPARE TO DIE!”
“Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.”
“You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!”
“Klingon function calls do not have ‘parameters’ – they have ‘arguments’ – and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.”
“A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!”
“Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!”
and finally:
“You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you’ve read it in the original Klingon.”

FossilFishy:
Lotsa hugs for your situation. What a loving partner you have.

I don’t understand. Not being told for at least a year that he has sleep apnoea – I would break down and cry about what politeness does to people. Road to hell being paved with good intentions and all that.

Maybe FossilFishy’s partner needs treatment, too – for anxiety.

It scares me. The idea that what happened is my fault is still so close to the surface, so close to being dominant. I feel like I’m standing on the fulcrum of a seesaw and the it is going to go one way or the other and I have no idea which.

*pounce* *hug* *squeeze*

I consider myself to be a coward.

I’ve always been proud to be a confessing coward.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Churchill

Heh. :-)

What worries me is that it’ll turn out that I don’t have sleep apnea

Uh, you stop breathing in your sleep. That’s the definition. That’s what the word literally means.

Never mind that the criminals took those guns from law-abiding citizens, and that if guns weren’t available to steal, they wouldn’t have guns! (I mean, DUH!)

Where I come from, guns are so hard to get that most bank robberies are committed with toys or other fakes.

There is so much hugginess to be distributed on this (and the end of the last) thread that I don’t even know where to begin… But please, all with known/unknown medical conditions, various sorrows, etc. … – help yourselves!!!

Seconded!!!

quoting something that somebody else has quoted already and only giving the person who already quoted as a source

Very shoddy indeed.

taking an idea from Hannah Arendt, saying that you got it from her, rewording it and not putting it in quotation marks (cause it isn’t a direct quote)

…What? Quotation marks would be actively wrong there.

Anyway, I’ve found the entry on VroniPlag. Clicking through the examples shows many cases where Schavan correctly cited a short quote, but failed to mention that everything around that quote (easily half a page in many cases) was also copied from the source cited for the quote.

So, if somebody asks me to provide the certificate for the second part of a class so they can write me the total certificate, does that mean I passed the exam?

…Which exam exactly? :-)

both the least trusted and most trusted source of news

And that explicitly includes Comedy Fucking Central:

Asked which outlet they trusted the most, the 800 surveyed over the last month ranked Fox at 34 percent with PBS next at 13 percent, CNN at 12 percent, ABC at 11 percent, MSNBC at eight percent, CBS at six percent and Comedy Central and NBC at five percent each.

But even more Americans identify Fox as the outlet they trust the least — 39 percent give its that designation with 14 percent for MSNBC, 13 percent for CNN, 12 percent for Comedy Central, five percent for ABC and CBS, three percent for NBC, and one percent for PBS.

Hey Parrowing… good, well it is probably good afternoon for everyone but me and a couple of others, but Happy Monkey in any event!

I had this dream last night:

I was Marty McFly, and me and the Terminator were escorting a prisoner to face murder charges and likely execution. The prisoner was the cheerleader from Heroes. We’re in a hotel, and we ride the elevator down (my dreams often have elevators) and she gets loose in a crowd of people pushing onto the elevator. I chase her to the hotel kitchen, where she dunks herself in a hot fry vat (cheerleader from Heroes is TINY!) and I quickly dunk my arms in dish water and pull her out. And I smelled like fries for the rest of the dream. :(

I was diagnosed a couple years ago and have been using a CPAP machine at night. I had pretty much exactly the problems I expected to with it.

First, the damned supply idiots gave me the wrong mask: my doctor wrote a general prescription for a “gel comfort mask” and they interpreted this as a prescription for a specific model which didn’t cover my mouth (I have very narrow sinuses and tend to breath through my mouth. I wish people wouldn’t use this as an insult. >.>), insisting that they’d lose their license if they gave me a model that actually worked for me instead of the reading they imposed on what the doctor had written, and my insurance refused to replace it without a one-week trial. I didn’t even bother with it after the first day. After a week I went back to the doctor, who was utterly mystified by the narrow interpretation of the prescription but made a point of instructing “patient choice of mask,” after which the supply company representative sheepishly muttered about how they’d had doctors flip out when they didn’t follow a prescription exactly. I was able to get a full-face mask, which had a forehead rest and was about the most ridiculous looking, unflattering, blatantly medical POS imaginable. It also had a poor design to the gel-plastic cushion which caused it to fold into a point which didn’t much cushion the hard plastic of the mask on my nose; I still have a “dent”-shaped scar on the bridge of my nose even two years later. About 4-5 months out I was able to get a replacement mask model which is shaped more or less like the masks you see fighter pilots wearing in movies and thus looks much less stupid and, more importantly, is actually comfortable. So it finally fucking works. (Except they really shouldn’t have half-assed the anchoring for the gel-plastic cushion the way they did. Ah well.)

The second problem I had was that I found it was very difficult to fall and stay asleep with the blower running constantly even when I exhaled. I found, essentially,t hat I wasn’t able to exhale reliably and would wake up due to feeling “choked” by it. I had anticipated this problem when evaluation for suitability of CPAP therapy was first suggested and didn’t appreciate my concern being ignored, but I was able to switch my prescription to a model (Which seems to use trade names like auto-flex, I think they may call it “APAP” or some such) which automatically reduces pressure on exhalation and gradually adjusts the pressure throughout the night rather than ramping up in a preset fashion and then being constant.

With these changes I’ve found it extremely helpful. So if it’s prescribed, be aware that the pressure-adjustment feature I described should be available, and make sure the doctor writes “patient choice” for the mask model.

Hey, science type peoples out there – anyone have any good resources for teaching chidlren about astronomy? My best friend is a cub scount leader, looking to help his pack earn the astronomy belt loop (does that makes sense to anyone?).

Just ordinary end of term exams. My plan is pretty weird given that I got most credits under the old system and now had to change to the new system. The new system requires a lot more general and obligatory stuff, so, although I already have credits for both “Hauptseminare” (you know, the most advanced level of classes) in Spanish, I also had to take a 101 introductory class…
And the exam didn’t go too well. It was supposed to be an overview, and the prof always said the exam would mirror the character of an overview but the exam was fucking specifics, mostly stupid dates I can’t remember anyway…

?
As used in teh USA!, (or translated to Alligator and Crocodylus) those are members of different (trad. reptile, not avian) Families, separate for something like 90 million years. (There are interesting physiological differences as well.)

Janine: Wow, that’s depressing. If even Jane Wiedlin, who had some decent success back in the day, isn’t getting paid, I have to wonder how those musicians who operate on the fringes manage to get by at all. It makes me want to go buy some of my favorite records a second time, just to send a little bit of cash their way.

I have to wonder how those musicians who operate on the fringes manage to get by at all.

Touring/concert tickets. Also swag; tshirts, autographed pictures, memorabilia. Buying the albums again really won’t help too much, I’m afraid, unless they have a really good deal with their label (or are their label, which is an increasingly available option).

Friend of mine at work just told me, “Stop apologizing for everything! If it is your fault, I’ll tell you, damnit!”

Which led me down a road of thought about depression and I think that a quick way for me to recognize when I am depressed (no, it is not always immediately obvious) is to count how many time I apologize. I think there is a direct correlation between how often I apologize and how low I feel.

I’m so sick and tired of being sick and tired. I have a meeting in 45 minutes, and lots and lots of drafting work to do afterwards. All I want to do is curl up in bed and sleep. Maybe this tea will help…

Keep working out like you did before and stop drinking beer during the weekdays and holy fucking shit…

you lose weight (or at least I do).

This has been brought to you by the obvious department of obviousness.

My wife of course has latched onto this because though i work out 5-6 days a week, my weight stay’s pretty stable (+/- 5lbs) and she’s been telling me to cut back on the beer for a while. Which I knew. But I like beer.

Trufax true story: my last boyfriend (back when I dated men) had untreated sleep apnea. It scared the shit out of me. To the point that every time he came over, people would joke the next day how I had obviously not gotten any sleep and make predictable jokes on the topic.

And yes, some of that was true.

But more of it was ohcrapgottastayawakeunlesshestopsbreathing.

I asked him to see someone about it, and he always waved it off. My “nagging” was one of the things that torpedoed our relationship.

So, I had a date. And we went to a tea bar. It was nice!

I ordered lapsang souchong. She sniffed at it, and recoiled. Asked me why I would want to drink that. I was all sad.

I have finally understood why I am a mess:
“Acute toxoplasmosis impairs memory and concentration” http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-acute-toxoplasmosis-impairs-memory.html
.
-Might this apply to Republicans? They have short memories for what their politicians have actually done, but on the other hand they seem really concentrated when it comes to their stance towards any minorities.
— — — — — — —
Re. crocodile-like reptiles. There is speculation that they are descended from partly “warm-blooded” archosaurs (some of which gave rise to dinosaurs, and others of which competed with dinosaurs for a long time) who evolved back to cold-blooded metabolism since that is an advantage for ambush predators.
The “hepatite-piston” breathing mechanism could be a relic from more active ancestors who used this instead of the diaphragm mammals use. I am quoting stuff I read years ago, so I might not remember correctly.
— — — — — — —
Making astronomy fun and serving it in portions suitable for the age of the kids is a good way to get them hooked on learning. It worked for me.
For star charts, keep it simple, stat with the brightest stars, the easy-to-recognise asterisms and the rules of thumb for orientation (like using the Ursa Major (short side) to find the direction to Arcturus, or using an extention of another line to find Orion or Pegasus, etc.
.
Help them identify the bright planets (mainly Jupiter) and see the jovian moons in binoculars. If Fomalhaut is visible, tell them this star actually has planets. Once they are hooked they will keep going on their own time.

I don’t get here as often as I used to, or I would like, but I came across this today and I thought this crowd would enjoy it.

Letter to the Royal Astronomical Society in refutation of Mistaken Notions held in common, by the Society, and by all the Newtonian Philosophers. By Capt. Forman, R.N. Shepton-Mallet, 1833, 8vo.

Capt. Forman wrote against the whole system of gravitation and got no notice. He then wrote to Lord Brougham, Sir J. Herschel, and others I suppose, desiring them to procure notice of his books in the reviews: this not being acceded to, he wrote (in print) to Lord John Russell to complain of their ‘dishonest’ conduct. He then sent a manuscript letter to the Astronomical Society, inviting controversy: he was answered by a recommendation to study dynamics. The above pamphlet was the consequence, in which, calling the Council of the Society ‘craven dunghill cocks,’ he set them right about their doctrines. From all I can learn, the life of a worthy man and a creditable officer was completely embittered by his want of power to see that no person is bound in reason to enter in controversy with every one who chooses to invite him to the field. This mistake is not peculiar to philosophers, whether of orthodoxy or paradoxy; a majority of educated persons imply, by their modes of proceeding, that no one has a right to any opinion which he is not prepared to defend against all comers.

– A Budget of Paradoxes (1872) by Augustus De Morgan, p. 178,

I doubt that the earliest troll was in 1833, but it confirms my belief that human nature hasn’t changed with the invention of the inter-tubes. ;)

Thanks Parrowing and rq
Another helping of hugs did help a bit.
I’m trying to focus on work but it’s not going great. Ah well.
These wills will get written when they will get written.

Esteleth
I’ve never dated anyone with sleep apnea, but I’ve found myself freaking out that they’ll stop breathing in the night and I will be sleeping. …that’s a different problem, probably.
Yay for fun date, I ♥ Father Ted.

OMG
Remember I had this project for college where I have to talk to people on Skype? Tonight I felt the strong urge to say “You’re an idiot, bye” after like 10 minutes.
Talking about culture and stuff he said shit like “But if you look at Latin America, they didn’t have much culture at all until recently if you dicount the indigenous people”
Head -> Desk
Managed to talk about less infuriating topics afterwards and in the end he thanked me for enriching his knowledge on ancient cultures…

For those that enjoy Jennifer Armintrout’s writing, she has settled in a new place, with a new name – Jenny Trout. There are some new posts, including review of fifth chapter of the third 50 Shades book (I can never remember the name).

Please, take a break. Rest here in the Lounge or do something offline that relaxes you, whatever you need. No one will resent you, we don’t want you to go beyond the point where helping with the idiots hurts you.

I’ll try to dive into the Thunderdome now, I only just caught up with the threads (been to the theater with mum).

Portia, do you think you’re having a panic attack? If so, is there a way you can focus your energy on something completely different right now? Is there a notepad nearby that you can doodle in for a while? Sorry if this is completely not helpful.

Yeah, the palpitations were residual of letting myself get upset by jackwads in the Tdome. I’m feeling a little self-blamey, similar to Ogvorbis said a littlewhile ago. I’m taking solace in all your reassurances of him. And what my non-lizard brain thought when he said those things. I’m repeating it to myself.

My chest has calmed down now. I am cozied up in bed with a file (S made me keep it to just one) and watching netflix while I work. I just have to get something done this afternoon or I will feel even more guilty.

Thanks for the extra hugs, rq. You and Parrowing willl enrich our sangria party :)

I take it you mean a nym in Thunderdome…but the original Father Ted would have been fun if the Irish television had not added such a LOUD laugh track. I have a dungeon cell waiting and ready for the inventor of the laugh track, right next to the cells for Bush, Cameron and that moron in Iran.

I do not like this self blame stuff. Neither you, Portia, nor you, Ogvorbis, bear the blsme for any of these recent events. If it gets to be too much, by all means, take a break. You both contribute so much. You are allowed some ‘me’ time.

*hugs* for Dalillama. Reminds me of a saying, “You can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t even quit the game”.
–

Now I lay me down to rest,
I pray Cthulhu my soul ingest.

Despite transgressions in the past,
I pray He will not eat me last.
–*big hugs* (exchangeable on a one-for-one basis for *scritches*) for WMDKitty. I’m sorry your partner is a fucking moron.
–
Giliell: ‘Cause once upon a time, when they were kids being punished for jumping on the couch in muddy shoes, they swore a Mighty Oath that “*hmph!* When I grow up and have kids I’m gonna let them do whatever they want!!!”

-Might this apply to Republicans? They have short memories for what their politicians have actually done, but on the other hand they seem really concentrated when it comes to their stance towards any minorities.

Naw. They’re just assholes. For your hypothetical to work, Republicans would need to be hanging out with cats at a higher rate than Democrats (and presumably Independents as well)…and that cat won’t hunt.
–

Talking about culture and stuff he said shit like “But if you look at Latin America, they didn’t have much culture at all until recently if you dicount the indigenous people”
Head -> Desk
Managed to talk about less infuriating topics afterwards and in the end he thanked me for enriching his knowledge on ancient cultures…

I’m gonna take a little break from commenting, and just recharge a bit. (Until I get withdrawals, which will be soon, I’m sure). Nice catch, indeed, with the phrasing, Beatrice. It’s an insidious beast, that lizard brain of mine. Thanks for the kind words, Tony, but I’m in no way on Og’s level of contribution.

Janine, I have no doubt that you do… and there’s nothing wrong with that. From what I’ve seen the ‘Dome is normally more or less like the Lounge with a slightly difference balance/frequency of the regular folks and only slightly different topics of discussion. But when it get bad, like the last little bit has been rough, it gets REALLY bad. And, generally not due to the regulars either.

*hugs* all round, especially for Portia and others suffering from the current Thunderdome.
Portia, Ogvorbis, you have no blame in this; all of that rests with the assholes who won’t stop attacking you.

Talking about culture and stuff he said shit like “But if you look at Latin America, they didn’t have much culture at all until recently if you dicount the indigenous people”

Well, sure. If you discount the indegenous people they didn’t have any at all until like 500 years ago. And if you discount the French, Germans, Italians, etc. Western Europe still hasn’t got any. If you’re ignoring things, though, you’re really not in a very good position to talk about related topics.

Here’s the deal: the move to New Mexico back in December turned out to be more expensive than we anticipated. Between my car exploding in Oklahoma and the cost of the moving trailer being way more than we expected, we wound up getting a title loan to get our trailer delivered and caught up on bills. The interest rate is like 92% a year, and it will take three years to pay off. So we’ll wind up paying triple.

On the other hand, income tax refund time is here… and we are getting close to enough money to pay off the entire balance of the loan in one lump sum. Close, but not enough. And my wife and I are generally terrible with our money, so my fear is that we’re going to nickle and dime away that money, rather than save and supplement it with money over the next month or three. So I’m thinking maybe we blow off our bills, other than the rent and power, and just pay off the loan. Saves us almost the cost of a new car over the next couple of years, even if we get hit with late charges on the phone and Internet and such.

I dunno… we’re just here, so we don’t have any goodwill built up with the power and water people. It is much easier when you’ve got a few years of regular payments under your belt.

Sigh…
As much as net hugs are emotional support, there are times-like right now-that I wish I could do something tangible to brighten the day for people like Portia and Ogvorbis. Be well, both of you. We shall be here when you return.

Joe: My instinct would definitely be to get rid of the predatory loan, especially if nickel and diming is a concern. (I have that trouble too, to a degree). Bills in my experience can generally be put off for a month safely. Other people may have different experiences.

sgbm:
Thanks. I will add ‘knowledgeable about punctuation’ to the your impressive skill set (along with ‘great at arguing’ and ‘really handy with links’)
****
Parrowing:
At a guess, I would say your comments in the Thunderdome are not the cause of anyone’s stress. Rather, the presence of abear and Paul are the likely contributing factors.

Parrowing, *hugs* for you too.
Thank you for sharing your story in Thunderdome, I can’t imagine how hard it must be to write openly about your pain like that.
(This last goes for everyone who shared their past experiences of abuse with us here)

Improbable Joe
Pay off as much of the loan as you possibly can, as fast as you can… Preferably all of it, but it sounds like you’re just painfully close to the all-of-it bit.
I know what it’s like to ‘put money away for [something special]’, only to find a few weeks/months later that it’s been spent by bits and pieces here and there (medication for kids! emergency new pants! dinner that one time the bills were higher than expected!). Best to get the big things off the books ASAP.
If they won’t let you repay almost the entire loan immediately, how much is the difference? Maybe I can help out (seriously).

As for helping tangibly, this is not the first time I wish I could. :( Even for real physical hugs or warm drinks some such little thing.

If we pay anything less than the whole amount, I THINK the majority goes towards the interest first, so it doesn’t actually accomplish anything. I’m not a lawyer, I’m not 100% clear on what the contract means. But maybe not? Interest accrues daily, so if I’m reading this right I’ll have to pay the accrued interest since last month, but then the rest goes to the principle. But I’m not sure, and I’m afraid if we just give them part they’ll figure out a way to screw us… again, I mean.

Improbable Joe
If your payment is going towards the interest, you should re-check your contract. Because they can’t (legally) charge you for interest you’re not going to accrue. At least, not in this country. They have to, by law, put any extra payments towards the actual loan. Because they can’t predict how long you’ll be paying the damn thing. And you can’t pay for time that you won’t be borrowing the money.
If that collection of near-sentences makes any fucking sense. :/ I hate translating while trying to help people.
I might be off on this, though – this might be completely different in the States. Someone?

Reap Paden tried another pseudonym this morning…caught before it appeared by my intelligently designed spam filters. The obsessed kook really has something wrong with his brain — his blog has already been kicked off the Planet Atheism syndicator for being nothing but anti-me drivel.

IMHO, math isn’t my strong point, but… GET THE FRICK OUT OF THAT LOAN RIGHT NOW

Calculate what it takes, call the power/phone companies and ask if they have hardship payment plans. No WAY will they screw your pooch as badly as that predatory loan.

(on refresh) rq: some shady companies will not allow you to repay a loan in advance. Legally, they do it by stacking repayment penalties on, much like cell and cable providers punish you for terminating service. Less legally, they use stunts like ‘holding the excess in escrow for you’ instead of paying it towards the principal immediately.

PteryxxSeriously? Wow.
I suspected as much, since IJoe mentioned not being certain (and when we went for the mortgage, the bank was extremely clear to point out that any extra cash went towards the principal, not the interest). :/ That’s horrible!
Either way, getting out of that contract ASAP (as much as possible) seems to be key.

I don’t know how loans look like in US, but be very careful that you don’t actually pay more this way. There are some fixed loans here where you actually pay more if you want to suddenly pay the loan in one go instead of over the years.

Or, what Pteryxx said in #161.

Paying the loan sounds great, but you have to be fully informed about what you are doing. Is there somewhere you can get more information about conditions and consequences of paying off the whole loan now?

Subway (where I stopped on my way home from work) was out of Coke. Apparently, this can happen. So I stood there, holding my cup, staring at my choices. I chose Cherry Coke, thinking that it would be like Coke, only somewhat cherry-ish.

Cicely:
You rock! Dr Pepper and Mr Pibb..yuck.
That said, a friend introduced me to an alcoholic drink with Dr Pepper that tastes good: Dr Pepper and Goldschlager. It changes the taste of the soda into something quite good.

Beatrice, rq, Dalillama, Parrowing, et al. thanks for the hugs.
Parrowing, your post was nothing but…liberating? I can’t think of the right word exactly but I think it was wonderful you posted that and I don’t want you to feel badly about it on my account at all.

Tony

As much as net hugs are emotional support, there are times-like right now-that I wish I could do something tangible to brighten the day for people like Portia and Ogvorbis.

This is a really sweet sentiment. It actually made me think…my mom just asked me if I wanted to go to Florida for a bit in a few weeks. But I think the condo is near Tampa, which google maps tells me in nowhere near Pensacola. Ah well. It was a thought.

iJoe
You lit the Portia-signal :) Or maybe someone else did, asking if the terms of your loan were legal. If you pay off the loan early, in order for them to apply it to the principal and not the interest, you have to specify that. As I understand it, it’s illegal for them to apply it to interest when you tell them not to. I agree with what everyone else said, too. Get out of it now. Those lenders are horrible, and power companies aren’t nearly as bad. There might even be assistance programs.
=============
Some of our European friends seemed shocked that those loan terms were legal. I think it was 2010 when Obama tried to appoint now-Senator Elizabeth Warren to the head of the Consumer Protection Agency. The GOP was basically convinced she would do too much protecting, and blocked it. This was one of her causes, predatory lending like title loans. And now, she’s on the banking committee and the lenders are piiiissssed. It’s awesome. :)

As you can imagine, this is somewhat of a disturbing precedent, given that ‘Space Marine’ already has an established meaning as a generic term within military science fiction that predates the existence of Games Workshop as a company by several decades. As an example, Robert A. Heinlein used the phrase in Starship Troopers back in the ’50s.

Given the fact that I am a long term customer of Games Workshop, I find this doubly annoying and disappointing.

Ijoe
The power company will almost always work with you on payments, IME, and don’t usually charge interest; late fees maybe, but those are a one time lump sum. You’re much better off dealing with them than the loansharks.

Gregory Greenwood
I can’t see where they could possibly have an actual case there; it sounds like legal intimidation of someone they think can’t afford to actually contest it. Complete asshole move, regardless, especially given that as you note it was in use already by the time the founders of Games Workshop were out of diapers

(I have no problem with gun ownership. What I have a problem with is the vicious-cycle in which fear leads to widespread gun purchasing, widespread gun purchasing leads to easily-carried-out gun-violence, and easily-carried-out gun-violence leads to fear. Happens in the U.S. and apparently not really anywhere else.)

Ogvorbis
I’m so sorry. Hang in there.

Portia
Cables are awesome! And way easier than they look. Enjoy! (Heh. Intarsia is just knitting different blocks of colour in the same piece of material.)

So I had to order a replacement battery for my laptop. It was delivered today. Confusingly, there was a second package addressed to me as well. I opened it up and discovered a fairly sizable LEGO set. There was confusion and worry about somebody was ordering stuff in my name at first, but then I noticed it came from the same company that sold me the battery.

Somehow…someone there accidentally sent me a LEGO set. This is especially weird since, as far as I know, ALL THEY SELL IS BATTERIES. With the internet all messed up, it took hours to actually manage to get to their contact information online and get an email sent. I’m really hoping this wasn’t a time sensitive gift that was supposed to go to some poor kid.

I was tempted to play with it, but I carefully put it back in the box and went through the fight to contact them. Had I not noticed that it was from the same company, I might have assumed that I had been visited by the LEGO fairy, though.

Having done a lot of shit jobs over the years I think what we have here is just a case of some poor underpaid minion using the company post for personal stuff. If the supervisor happened along at the wrong time perhaps the only way to play safe was to send it as an order. Hope you can get it to the correct person, doubt the company will be of much help if my scenario is any way near the mark.
Good luck.
G

I was moping around being hoooooongry and thinking about gorging myself on Saltines. Then I remembered that I was prudent enough (Ha, as opposed to imprudent) to freeze ziplock baggies of my sweet potato corn chowder for later nomming. Comfort in a bowl, in 3 minutes. Mmmmm.

Whoa. I decided to catch up on the thunderdome, and followed Chris’ link to the slymepit. Holy crap those people are obsessive, and I only clicked a couple results from his search. I really don’t get the…obsession

Don’t feel too bad; that’s how I am with True Blood. I think I just have a hateration for any show where the main characters are teens in high school. I couldn’t get through ‘Teen Wolf’ or ‘Pretty Little Liars’ either.

I’m liking Gilmore, but I’m not very far into the show. I also really love ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ which I’m watching on Netflix.

Teen dramas are weirdly fascinating to me, I can’t stop watching. *puts on rationalization hat* Maybe it’s because I didn’t socialize with teenagers a lot when I was one (homeschooling ftw!) so I’m observing them like foreign phenomena.

I did give up on PLL within 3 minutes though. I’ve heard mixed reviews of SOA. Maybe I’ll give it a try. I really like a lot of the BBC stuff on Netflix. Luther is very good, and if you like vampire shows, S and got very sucked into Being Human.

The dialogue in Gilmore Girls grates on me. It’s too…. swish. Nary a pause nor a stumble to be seen. Just an endless flow of witty banter from practically every character.
Could be an awesome show other than this but I’ve never managed to stick it out through a whole episode.

There is a Canadian (or American, I’m not sure) “remake” series that… it tries so hard to be (UK!) “Being Human”, but manages to fail even harder than it tried. The characters were changed and I’m not just talking about names!

Yeah, iJoe, I really enjoyed it, as a quality show. (As opposed to the way I enjoy Vampire Diaries). It’s modern, set in London. It’s about a detective. There are plenty of cliches (he has problems in his marriage! his nemesis is a weirdly-endearing serial killer! he breaks the rules to do the Right Thing™) but overall I thought it was worth watching (and recommending, obviously)

WMDKitty: Oh, yes. S and I switched to the US version after exhausting the Netflix supply of UK, and I was really disappointed (as expected. So I guess if my expectations were low I wasn’t really disappointed…anyway…) S wasn’t as put off as I was, so we watched a lot of it. I think mostly I wanted the George character to be more George like. And the Tully-character induced come-on to the Nina-character was way more painful to watch in the US version, I think.

Woops, ok, Canadian then. When you get your ‘flix back, give the UK one a shot, Joe.

BEING HUMAN SPOILERS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

WMDKitty, did you notice that at a certain point the show just became a different show? They invented new (different) supernatural rules, and they substituted almost the whole main cast. Annie was the only one left after the first season or something like that.

I didn’t like ‘Luther’ because we’re told over and over again that the main character is this brilliant detective. But they never show him being a brilliant detective. He just makes a lot of stupid, self-destructive choices. IDK, maybe it got better but I watched 4 episodes and gave it up.

For another BBC show, I’m watching ‘Ripper Street’ right now and its so-so. Exciting, and I love the old-timey dialogue, but its got a lot of historical anachronisms that are really starting to pile up on me. Last episode, the mentioned the murder of Czar Nicholas. The show is set in 1889…

My all-time fav BBC show is still ‘Sherlock.’ And, of course, ‘Downton Abbey.’

Portia I have to admit, I stopped watching near the end of S1/start of S2, because it went from “three friends sharing a flat, passing for human” to “complex vampire politics and nasty testing on werewolves”, straight in to left field, you know? That kinda bored me, because I wanted to get back to The Trio and their day-to-day stuff.

Yes, exactly, WMDKitty. it was a totally different show. I really liked the three friends angle. I think my biggest problem with the Canadian version was that I didn’t believe for a second that the three of them gave two shits about each other. As for the UK version, it just got weirder and weirder.

SPOILERS

George and Nina have a baby, are then killed, and the baby is The One, and she kills herself in the future and travels back through time via purgatory to kill her baby self and prevent global vampire domination.

I am totally at sea, having never seen any of the shows y’all are discussing, and never even heard of most of them. (Downton Abbey I’ve heard the name, but that’s all I know, True Blood I tried reading one of the books, got through a chapter or so, and then put it down because I hated it. I see no reason to suppose that the TV series will grip me any more). Nevertheless, have fun watching.

WMDkitty:

Hey, slight tangent, but has anybody else noticed creeping Britishisms showing up in their vocabulary?

Cyranothe2nd
@228
Seconded on both counts.
‘Ripper Street’ is great. For several years Leaman Street Police Station was my local cop shop. As far as I know the cages for prisoners that you see here never existed, th
ough they do make it easier for the cameras!
I caught the Czar rference and sighed a bit. Perhaps there was an “attempted” in there
we both missed ?
It is exciting, and I like the character dvelopment so far.
G

Things have smoothed over with Partner. Neither one of us wants to end this thing, especially on a sour note.

He didn’t mean what he said to sound the way it did. We had the “Intent is not Magic” conversation. I’m not sure he entirely understands, but I’ll give him credit for trying, and double credit for putting in the effort to be supportive (even if he’s kinda clumsy about it).

It feels really weird, having Partner be there for me. I haven’t had that in so long… it’s a good kind of weird, I guess.

Dalillama:
True Blood the novels and True Blood the tv show are similar but different entities. To a large degree. I have enjoyed the show quite a bit. I have the first three novels and haven’t read them yet. It is much harder for me to get through books without pictures (you laugh, but I am a comic book reader first and foremost, so I am accustomed to pictures and words).

Can anyone point me to resources on what to do when a child whose parents are religious asks me about god? Or offer suggestions on how to handle it?

Context for those who might be interested below. Otherwise, carry on. :)

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If the question had been a football, I think I fumbled, picked it up, then ran back to the other endzone*. These are wonderful friends of mine, fantastic people, and they’re about as sociocommofascibabyeating as anybody in this community that I’ve seen… except they believe in god.

Real possibility of damage here to our friendship; we’ve had a comfortable detente about religion for 12 years. I’m unsure how to proceed. Specifically, I’m worried about the relationship with parents. The daughter, otoh, has been quoted as saying “I like Patrick and [Patrick’s partner’s name here]** so much, but they keep using words I don’t understand”. D’aww.

* By this, I mean I drew a total blank, bit my tongue, and then carefully said that some people believe in god, and some don’t. I have a feeling that might come back to bite me in the ass, vis a vis the parents.

** I comment here. She doesn’t. But [kid’s name here] runs out in the driveway to meet us, and we’re basically family.

Joe
Just ignore me if you already ruled that out, but if you could pay back the full horrible loan, but you’re missing a small amount, would it be feasible to get a better, different loan now with bossnurse having a good job?
I know that’s what my sister did when she had gotten into credit card trouble. You know those that only make you pay back a minimal rate each month so she lost control over how much she actually owed and had to pay back and it kept getting more cause the miniml payment wasn’t even the interest. So at the local bank they worked out a normal loan which she then used to pay off the horrible credit card debt and where she actually pays back the debt while not paying that much more.

Thunderdome
I think at the moment it has been infested by a bunch of people who aptly demonstrate why the rest of Pharyngula and the Lounge especially need the rules they have now, because they use their Freeze Peach to hurt and trigger people. Yeah, dear Concordance, they really want to be heard…

True Blood the novels and True Blood the tv show are similar but different entities.

This is true, but I have yet to meet a TV series I liked more than the series it was drawn from, and I’ve actually seen bits of the show when Roommate was watching; they do not lead me to think that this will be the show to buck the trend.

To a large degree. I have enjoyed the show quite a bit. I have the first three novels and haven’t read them yet.

I really can’t recommend them, based on what I was able to get through but de gustibus non est disputandum.

What is it with heterosexual guys who drink too much?
I’m sitting at Emerald City, and there are 3 guys (all het) who walk in with a woman. The guys have clearly been drinking for *a while*. They go from drunk to blazed in no time at all. Of course two of them get to playing “who’s dick is bigger”. Almost get into a fight. Thankfully it was broken up before things went too far.
And to make matters worse-or is that better-the guys were cuuuuuuuuuuuuute! And they posed for pictures. Shirtless.

Politely, shouldn’t that be “What is with (some) heterosexual guys who drink too much?” :)

That said, seriously, what IS it with some heterosexual guys… as a heterosexual male myself, penis competitions are very difficult on the spur of the moment. I mean, what, you’re drunk, you can waggle it limply, but can you really show how you use it?

Can we change that to “what is it with some people who drink too much?”

I’ve seen women get scary angry when drunk. (That was also the night I learned that lesbians have drama, too, and that it is not a good idea to lean or sit on random cars, because you might really piss off the owner of said car. Oh, and you DO NOT fuck with the bouncers/security at the local gay bar. Ever.)

While I’m on the topic of said local gay bar, it’s the one bar I actually feel safe in. Not because there aren’t LBGT creepers (because, duh, there are always creepers in any given population), but because the staff goes to extra effort to keep the patrons safe. And the loos (at least the ladies’ loo) is 100% wheelchair accessible, which makes for one happy kitty, here.

I realize I’m basically your secretary. Could you not so openly joke about it?

And please don’t joke about how I’m going to go with the guys lugging computers around, but to “coordinate” and “order them about”, not carry anything (god forbid). It kinda puts me in an uncomfortable position.
*sigh*

And everyone else saying nice things about Ginger… stop it! She’s already got it in her head that she’s the best dog in the whole world, she doesn’t need any more ego boosts. :)

Must… resist… squeeing… can’t say something nice about the doggie………. *explodes forth stream of consciousness rambling* “But she’s just so cute and that sweater looks so warm and she has the cutest expression and omg awwwwwww who’s the sweetest puppy, yes, Ginger is the sweetest puppy!” Okay, that’s done.

Luther? Absolutely fan.tas.tic acting. The plot’s a bit erky, but much better than the standard cop show that gets stuff done and dusted in no time at all. The character development is a bit heavy on the gotta be seriously fucked up to counter for being a big strong intelligent bloke with a heart of gold. Or something.

But, …. biiiiig but, for anyone with fear of heights and or vertigo. When he’s ‘thinking things through’ or worried about something he goes to the top of a tall building …. and stands on the edge of it. Right. On. The. Edge.

Had me cringing in the corner of the chair with my fingers over my eyes a few times.

Having done a lot of shit jobs over the years I think what we have here is just a case of some poor underpaid minion using the company post for personal stuff. If the supervisor happened along at the wrong time perhaps the only way to play safe was to send it as an order. Hope you can get it to the correct person, doubt the company will be of much help if my scenario is any way near the mark.

I think you might be right. The company wrote back to me and claimed that they didn’t sent it to me and it must have been…Amazon.

Um, no. It was you. Your own label is on the packaging, it’s the same packaging your company uses and there’s no packing slip inside. Amazon didn’t steal your boxes and send me a surprise LEGO set.

But since I can’t find to whom it was really supposed to go, I guess that’s all I can do.

Morning Parrowing & rq… there’s nothing to be done about that irrepressibly happy puppy of mine. Six years we’ve had her, and every time we go outside is like the very first time. You should have seen her when we got here from Virginia after being away from her mommy for 6-7 weeks. I thought she was going to explode!

And right now, Princess Ginger is trying to summon me back to bed. I’m up, but she’s not ready to be up, and she doesn’t like to be in the bed by herself. My kids are so weird, I’ll probably have the dog and three of the four cats in bed with me within a few minutes. Once my wife goes to work, there’s extra room for more furry-kin?

MM
In Germany the law says that if somebody sends you something you didn’t order it’s their fucking problem and you don’t have to do shit about it. You have to keep it unused for a certain period of time and after that it’s yours. They have to do all the stuff like contacting you, collecting it again and so on. Of course there are companies that try to ignore that and intimiate people into paying for things they didn’t order and didn#t need…

If you were trying to craft some non-discrimination bills to protect gays in Utah, would you want to meet with representatives of the LDS church to work on the legislation?

I don’t know if it is a Moment of Mormon Madness when LDS attorneys stick their noses into the process of writing bills for the state legislature, or if it is s sign that uptight mormons are at least acknowledging that gay rights need to be nurtured. Most likely, it is business as usual. We don’t always learn the details, but the LDS church wields a big stick when it comes to Utah state laws. They are probably just trying to mitigate what they see as cultural damage from the unstoppable movement for gay rights.

Attorneys for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are in quiet discussions with leaders of Utah’s gay and lesbian community, trying to hammer out language for a statewide ban on housing and employment discrimination that the church could support….

If the LDS Church, the state’s largest faith to which nearly 90 percent of the Utah Legislature belongs, were to endorse the anti-discrimination bill, it would be a major boost for efforts to pass the legislation, which has failed the past several years….

LDS Church discussions about an anti-discrimination law proceed even as the faith continues its efforts to oppose gay marriage. Last week, the church filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing to uphold the national Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, the ballot initiative banning gay marriage that the church publicly supported…

“I would suggest changing the tag line or deleting all together as I’m concerned about the negative connotation that our readers may associate with the word feminism. In addition, we’ll want this blog to focus more on Christianity/spirituality as opposed to issues related to feminism.”

The mildly deranged penguin is currently experimenting with Zoot Suits and Lincoln-style top hats. Not the traditional black top hats, mind you. At first, she wanted a red-and-white striped one, until I pointed out that made her look like The Cat in The Hat. So now she’s trying out an orange-ish one with green sparkles, to go with the red and purple camouflaged see-through Zoot Suit.

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Dr. Pepper of any stripe is an Undrinkable Substance, suitable only for drowning Horses in, and watering peas.

Your supposed to drink the stuff…? I thought that, in addition to the aforesaid uses, it was for dissolving concrete and sealing space-time wormholes shut (being the only known substance that can withstand a Black Hole).

I can’t see where they could possibly have an actual case there; it sounds like legal intimidation of someone they think can’t afford to actually contest it.

That is the problem – Games Workshop isn’t suing the author, but she does not have a formal publisher, instead publishing direct through Amazon, and Amazon have spinlessly caved in to pesssure from Games Workshop and pulled her book from their website. As you say, it is bullying tactics pure and simple – they know they don’t have a legal leg to stand on, but they also know that it is unlikely their victim will have the resources to contest their claim.

Complete asshole move, regardless, especially given that as you note it was in use already by the time the founders of Games Workshop were out of diapers

Very much so, and doubly the case given the hypocrisy in their position. As a new company some twenty five years ago, Games Workshop used the editorial of their in-house hobby magazine to champion the idea that over zealous use of intellectual property laws was harmful to creative industries – given the level of pop culture influence from the likes of The Lord of the Rings on Warhammer, and of Starwars and the Alien franchise on Warhammer 40,000, their stance on this at that time was perhaps more motivated by self interest than high principle, but it is still quite the change from their atrocious contemporary attitude.

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Improbable Joe @ 200;

If Games Workshop wins the lawsuit, John Glenn should totally sue the fuck out of them since he’s kind of the original Space Marine.

That would be highly amusing to see…

There are many other authors and organisations who were using the term ‘Space Marine’ long before Games Workshop even existed. It is nothing short of ridiculous that they were ever even granted a Trademark for such a generic phrase, and I don’t imagine it would stand the smallest hope of surviving any kind of serious legal challenge, which makes their use of it to pick on someone who lacks the resources to fight back particularly despicable.

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george3 @ 201;

The Popehat Signal is up.

It is good to know that people are organising to do something about this. Hopefully Games Workshop will come to their senses soon and abadon these underhanded tactics.

*sheepish face*
I’m currently hopelessly addicted to Vampire Diaries.
Well, more I can’t stop watching in spite of myself. Even when it’s bad, I still have to know what happens.

Don’t feel too bad – the two women I know who are Vampire Diaries fans openly admit that they don’t watch it for the plot or characterisation at all, and indeed can barely remember any plot points or story arcs at all. Apparently, the two primary male characters are “complete dreamboats”, and that is reason enough for them to watch.

A Connecticut Lutheran pastor has apologized for participating in an interfaith prayer vigil for the 26 children and adults killed at a Newtown elementary school in December because his church bars its clergy from worshipping with other faiths….

She stared at that sentence for a looonnnnngggggggg time, and is now arguing with the extremely angry mouse about borrowing the sonic screwdriver. Not quite sure what she’s thinking — who is? (mildly deranged penguin included) — but I’d keep an eye out for the War of the Worlds–style tripods with 40-foot high killer rat crews and shooting beams of peas.

What is it with heterosexual guys who drink too much?
I’m sitting at Emerald City, and there are 3 guys (all het) who walk in with a woman. The guys have clearly been drinking for *a while*. They go from drunk to blazed in no time at all. Of course two of them get to playing “who’s dick is bigger”. Almost get into a fight. Thankfully it was broken up before things went too far.
And to make matters worse-or is that better-the guys were cuuuuuuuuuuuuute! And they posed for pictures. Shirtless.

Dr. Pepper of any stripe is an Undrinkable Substance, suitable only for drowning Horses in, and watering peas.

Your supposed to drink the stuff…? I thought that, in addition to the aforesaid uses, it was for dissolving concrete and sealing space-time wormholes shut (being the only known substance that can withstand a Black Hole).

Isn’t this just peachy keen? The NRA is building prisons, contributing to incentives in the USA to lock people up. Making money from crime.

Toward the end of a four-hour Senate hearing on gun violence last week, Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president of over two decades, took a break from extolling the virtues of assault rifles and waded briefly into new territory: criminal justice reform. “We’ve supported prison building,” LaPierre said….

California’s overflowing prisons, which the Supreme Court had deemed “cruel and unusual punishment” in 2011 because of squalid conditions, were partly a product of the NRA’s creation. Starting in 1992, as part of a now-defunct program called CrimeStrike, the NRA spent millions of dollars pushing a slate of supposedly anti-crime measures across the country that kept America’s prisons full—and built new ones to meet the demand. CrimeStrike’s legacy is everywhere these days….

So I flipped my mattress a month or so ago, and the new side was slanted oddly, but I decided to go with it. I guess I started rolling into the wall in my sleep, because I developed bruises on the knee closest to the wall and I don’t remember injuring it. Now the whole knee is screwed up and it objects loudly to stairs and I will probably need physio. (Which I have coverage for, just no time. Argh.)

So! Two nights ago I flipped the mattress back. I’m not sure why a nice, level mattress produces such odd dreams, but it is entertaining. The night before last, I spent what seemed like a very long time dreaming that my glasses wouldn’t sit properly on my face. In excruciating detail. Really, subconscious?

Last night, the dreams included:
-The international space station had fallen into the ocean near Australia, and I was swimming around trying to find it.
-Our old dog, who was put to sleep 1.5 years ago, was actually running wild with a pack of wolves along a city trail.
-We discovered that my lack of spatial relations skills was caused by some minor inner ear defect (inspired by carlie’s kid’s otolith difficulties, I think), and I was about to have it repaired but my family wouldn’t leave me alone for the operation.
-While I was searching for the international space station, the ocean kept changing into a bunch of different landscapes. Rolling hills in fall, orchard in spring, city park. I actually realized that I was dreaming then, and tried to do the lucid dreaming thing. (Only the second time that’s happened to me, so that was fun.) I managed to imagine my dog into the dream, but then I lost control and she turned into a puppy again.

What, again? You’d think that people who supposedly love the Constitution so much would be big fans.
Rev. BigDumbChimp

hat are people’s thoughts on limiting what food stamps can be used for?

Specifically sugary sodas.

It would be a useless and superficial bandaid for whatever problem you think you’re trying to solve, which would accomplish nothing but add further humiliation and hoop jumping to a process already designed with the primary purpose of making sure the damn filthy poors stay in their place. If you want to discuss this further, we can take it to the ‘Dome.

Let people buy what they want. If it’s about people’s health, then take actions against producers of sugary sodas, make them have some damn standards. Limiting poor people’s freedom to drink whateverthehell they want is about humiliating them because of their poverty not about their health.

What, again? You’d think that people who supposedly love the Constitution so much would be big fans.

Ex-fucking-zactly!!! It’s enumerated, isn’t that what they fap to all the time? The mind, it boggles at the heights of hypocrisy.

Nutmeg:
Yep, brains are weird. : ) Once I had a dream that I was pregnant, and happy about it. My brain was screaming the whole time “Have an abortion, why are you not having an abortion?!” I woke up in shakes, convinced I would be happy if I accidentally got pregnant. The horror!

It would be a useless and superficial bandaid for whatever problem you think you’re trying to solve, which would accomplish nothing but add further humiliation and hoop jumping to a process already designed with the primary purpose of making sure the damn filthy poors stay in their place. If you want to discuss this further, we can take it to the ‘Dome.

I’m going to assume your tone here is not directed at me for asking a question and is a reaction to the idea of limiting what people can buy with food stamps (which by the way is already done with alcohol, tobacco and a few other things).

Let people buy what they want. If it’s about people’s health, then take actions against producers of sugary sodas, make them have some damn standards. Limiting poor people’s freedom to drink whateverthehell they want is about humiliating them because of their poverty not about their health.

Yeah I generally agree with that, but how do you feel about the existing bans then? Do you agree alcohol and tobacco should be on the “no” list?

Really, the solution is on the other end; the main problem with poor diet right now has to do with shitty food being really cheap, which is an entirely artificial state. If we cut corn (and soybean) subsidies (and I do mean cut them; all of them), the rate of soda/junk food consumption would go down by itself as the price rose. Funnel the money into a mixture of capitalization for farmers with varied crops, farmer’s markets, and increases in foodstamp budgets, and no one will be less able to feed themselves.

I asked because it is a topic in my state right now not because I necessarily agree with it.

I see no need to take it to the Dome.

That question asked without context is usually a sign that someone’s about to say something incredibly stupid and/or vile, so I was preparing in advance for that outcome, nor will I apologize for my reaction. Seriously, provide the context first when you’re saying shit like that.

Do you agree alcohol and tobacco should be on the “no” list?

Are they ‘food’? Tobacco certainly isn’t, nor is liquor, although there’s an argument to be made that beer and wine might count. FWIW, I’m not a huge fan of food stamps per se at all, and would far rather see straight cash benefits/ a Guaranteed minimum income, but that’s no justification to make the existing program worse than it is.

That question asked without context is usually a sign that someone’s about to say something incredibly stupid and/or vile, so I was preparing in advance for that outcome, nor will I apologize for my reaction. Seriously, provide the context first when you’re saying shit like that.

Or that the questioner wants to get answers un-influenced by the questioner’s position.

Plus how often do you find me making blatant vile or incredibly stupid things here?

Are they ‘food’? Tobacco certainly isn’t, nor is liquor, although there’s an argument to be made that beer and wine might count.

I have no info on this but I’m going to guess that the reason beer, wine and liquor are on the list have little to do with their classification as food or not. Really though, soda and liquor probably have about as much food value as each other. Empty calories. Like you said beer and wine could probably be considered differently.

I’d actually like to read about the process and decision reasons that alcohol was banned. I’m sure it’s roots are purely puritanical since this version of food stamps was started in 1964 and alcohol was banned from the get go. Though maybe not

As a Senator, Dole became a staunch supporter of the program, after he worked with George McGovern to produce a bipartisan solution to two of the main problems associated with food stamps: cumbersome purchase requirements and lax eligibility standards. He told Congress regarding the new provisions, “I am confident that this bill eliminates the greedy and feeds the needy.” The law was intended to strengthen the agricultural economy and provide improved levels of nutrition among low-income households; however, the practical purpose was to bring the pilot FSP under congressional control and to enact the regulations into law.

Rev. – I understand the reasons why people advocate for limiting what food stamps (and other public assistance) can be used for. It’s easy to think “you are spending my money on junk”, plus for a variety of reasons, people with lower incomes tend to have health conditions that are related to poor nutrition – “shouldn’t we try to help them be healthier?”, not to mention the widespread idea that people need public assistance because of poor choices so “we can make better choices for them.”
.
I tend to assume that people can make their own decisions, and that if they make poor decisions, they suffer the consequences and can learn from their errors. So if someone uses their food stamps for sugary sodas, and therefore cannot afford to buy enough food to make it through the month, they will have to make their food stretch and may learn to buy food first, then soda.
.
As for health consequences, I’m not convinced that sugary sodas are the biggest culprit. How about neighborhoods where it isn’t safe to go for a walk? Kids who don’t have access to a park or playground?
.
There’s also the whole problem of drawing up the list of things that are covered and not covered. What about Oreo cookies? What about cake mix to make a birthday cake? What about coffee? How about sugar to put in the coffee? Nothing against government bureaucrats, but how many would need to be added to the payroll for this?
.
And, of course, there is the issue of enforcement. The more exclusions, the more work it is for grocery stores to keep their systems updated and staff educated. The more work it is for grocery stores, the more likely it is that stuff will slip through or that grocery stores will stop participating in the program (especially small grocery stores like you find in a lot of rural areas).

Over here, you get money and you spend it however you want. If you want to drink it all away, that’s your problem. I agree with that – not that spending it on alcohol is a good idea, but that it’s your business, not government’s.

not to mention the widespread idea that people need public assistance because of poor choices

and this for sure.

There’s also the whole problem of drawing up the list of things that are covered and not covered. What about Oreo cookies? What about cake mix to make a birthday cake? What about coffee? How about sugar to put in the coffee? Nothing against government bureaucrats, but how many would need to be added to the payroll for this?
.

No doubt. Though right now Soda is the monster under the bed (or onthe shelf for that matter) so it’s being targeted. Just look at what NYC recently did.

Something that many have argued, correctly, unfairly punishes minority businesses.

Over here, you get money and you spend it however you want. If you want to drink it all away, that’s your problem. I agree with that – not that spending it on alcohol is a good idea, but that it’s your business, not government’s.

Are there constant uproars of people trying to change this or is it pretty much accepted?

As for health consequences, I’m not convinced that sugary sodas are the biggest culprit. How about neighborhoods where it isn’t safe to go for a walk? Kids who don’t have access to a park or playground?

The built environment (walkable neighborhoods, parks, wtc.) are vastly important, but there’s a very strong correlation between consumption of sweetened beverages and type II diabetes specifically. Furthermore, HFCS doesn’t trigger the brain’s satiety reflexes to the degree that cane sugar does (I’ll post a reference as soon as I find it, my data archives are in a horrible state), so HFCS sweetened sodas tend to be consumed in larger quantities (Also, the size that the serving is offered in affects people’s consumption rates, which is the reason for the size limit in NYC). The reason for the change to HFCS is the corn subsidies I mentioned earlier, and the states can’t do anything much about that; they’re Federal, though the Omnibus Farm Bill.

So if someone uses their food stamps for sugary sodas, and therefore cannot afford to buy enough food to make it through the month, they will have to make their food stretch and may learn to buy food first, then soda.

That’s not really an issue, soda is absurdly cheap. The complaints are all either public health or moral scolds who hate the idea of poor people having anything beyond absolute bare necessities.

There are always assholes talking about those lazy people who do nothing or pop out a dozen kids so that they could lead a comfy life on social assistance, but there are no hate campaigns like in US.

I heard there were some restrictions planned (in who can receive social assistance, not how it can be spent), but I don’t know what got implemented. There is a new program for the long-term unemployed, who have to do “public works*” for a couple of months, for minimum wage if they wanted to keep receiving assistance (after the public works were done).

*you could clean a park or enter data, with little regard for your age and capabilities

Something that many have argued, correctly, unfairly punishes minority businesses.

I went and looked into this; I had no idea that Big Gulps were exempted; that makes the entire fucking thing completely fucking pointless; if you’re going to do something like that it has to be applied uniformly; I’m incredibly pissed off now.

Ha, it’s funny because every time I watch it I think “That dude’s face is just…weird.” He’s actually kind of hard to look at for me.

I’ll pat myself on the back for being entranced by the predictable plot :D

Far be it from me to comment on another person’s appearance – afterall, I am not exactly what even the most generous observer would call a ‘looker’, so I am really not in any position to comment – but I must admit that I cannot really see why the gentleman in that picture inspires such a strong response in the ladies in question. All a question of personal taste I suppose.

I’ll pat myself on the back for being entranced by the predictable plot :D

It could be worse – I have watched the first few episodes of the show The Following, and I have been increasngly horrified by the ableism of constant references to ‘crazy killers’ and the fact that one of the eponymous ‘following’ is a character who is clearly imlplied to suffer from some form of personaliy disorder whose violent actions and cruelty are implicitly linked to his supposed mental illness.

The show reached its nadir thus far in last episode, episode three, which continued an established and already problematic plotline about two of the serial killers infiltrating an intended victim’s social circle by pretending to be gay. Now being told in retrospect, episode three revealed that the killers – originally identified as straight – got drunk one night and had sex, a fact now being concealed from the girlfriend of one of them (who is also a member of this serial killer social club). The message seemingly being that getting drunk while pretending to be gay can somehow result in a complete shift in one’s sexuallity – a riff on the toxic idea of some kind of conspiracy of ‘gay conversion’ and its flip side; the offensive and ludicrous idea of ‘gay cures’. Needless to say, the two killers are the only characters in the entire show who don’t conform to the usual cis/het pop cultue standard.

And it gets even worse (serious trigger warning) – the wife of one of the other serial killers is found hiding in their house, terrified of his return. The investigators check her story, and find that she has been the victim of a serious incident of domestic violence in which she was stabbed. Kevin Bacon’s character asks the lead female investigator if she believes the woman, and she says she does, going on to explain that she has seen this ‘pathetic’ behaviour before among women who ‘can’t deal with reality’ and love the fantasy of the man that exists in their mind’s eye rather than dealing with the reality of the actual person they married/got involved with – all the usual nasty victim blaming tropes.

Not satisfied with replicating such toxic misogyny, the show goes on to reveal that the apparent victim was not actually the victim of domestic violence at all, but was in fact one of the serial killers herself, accidentally stabbed more seriously than intended by her husband during some kind of messed up parlour game for murderers, and has been lying all along. This revelation comes too late to stop her killing one of the police officers (a ‘disposeable’ token black character, naturally), and the female cop goes on to reproach herself for not realising that the apparent victim of domestic violence was of course a serial killer all along. Not just victim blaming, but actually going so far as ‘seeming-victim-as-pathological-liar-and-murderer’.

Yeah – frankly, I would have been much better off with a show about angsty teenage vampires. :-(

Beatrice
That’s pretty unprofessional, I’m sorry you have to put up with it.

Patrick
It seems to me like what you said was pretty innocuous. Do you friends expect you to pretend for their child’s benefit that you do believe in gods? Do they expect their child to never know that people don’t? That’s a pretty unreasonable expectation, if so. If they are such good friends, and they do sound like good, fair, people, they will be understanding. The question took you off guard, and you answered it honestly and benignly.

chigau
Hope your day is good, too : )
—–

In other news:

We both sat there and listened to what the judge ordered. She said she would write up the order. Now she’s trying to change the terms of the order. I am struggling to stay courteous with this other attorney as she drags this out into a complete circus. Rarg.

Wowza, Gregory, that’s a lot of awful messages. I’ve been seeing a lot of bad misogynistic ones myself in the VD, though, so it might be slightly less bad on that count, but not much.

There’s a long arc wherein the above-pictured young man “turns off his humanity” and is abusive and murderous and horrible. But the young woman still loves him because “he’s under there somewhere” and she just has to save him with her love. Then he’ll stop hitting her and castigating her and killing her friends, and almost killing her. It’s a disgusting reinforcement of the idea that “He’s terrible because he loves me, and he’s got a good heart, deep down.” Though that seems to be a heavily-used trope in vampire stories.

On the plus side, there are a lot of important female characters, good and bad. And the most recent episode I watched focused on how the currently “good” vampire brother was in the wrong because he was overprotective and ignoring the woman’s judgments about her own life. So there’s that.

Sign me up for the “Luther is awesome” group.
I like how the character actually isn’t the superhero who gets out unscathed, and I admit to having a crush on his murderous “girlfriend”.

re: food stamps and stuff
Over here you get the money, rent is paid directly. IMO let adult people make their decisions themselves and make sure that kids get most of their benefits in places like school, say, let’s have three free meals there. Because while some parents are wonderful and will deny themselves everything to make sure their kids have a bit more, there are also adults who will just spend all the money on shit and while I have no problems if they have to live of dry pasta by the end of the month I don’t want children to suffer.
And most importantly: Make it fucking enough for a life with dignity.

Lynna #312
No, no, no. We have American sunlight, not like that commie German sunlight. Our sunlight understands the essential need for Americans to drive huge cars and get our power from good American coal, mined by dirt poor Americans, for the profit of American CEOs and shareholders*, dammit. That’s why it won’t give those freeloading solar panels as much energy.

*Americanness of shareholders is measured by the amount of shares they own; actual nationality is irrelevant.

Portia, the trouble with watching teens on TV is that they have nothing to do with the reality of my admittedly limited and long-ago experience, any more than any other situation comedy.

Dalillama, Schmott Guy, your reprimand was unfair and, as you say, disturbingly clueless on the part of the unlistening supervisors. You are well within your rights to tell the kids to leave the recycling alone and their non-listening interaction with you was, well, alarming. Are they like that the rest of the time? I hope you start looking around for something better.

I think it is kind of interesting, although I find the fact that you’re talking about two shows created by the same person to me the more interesting part. The fact that he’s gay, and also writing problematic gay/not-gay/maybe-gay characters, who are also unstable murderers? I don’t think it means anything, exactly. Just sort of makes me think “hmmmm”. It would stand out more if there was a single person with obvious redeeming qualities on the show… which is why *potential spoiler* I’m convinced that not-Jinx is the killer’s inside person in the FBI.

I’m certainly not suggesting that Williamson gets a pass because he’s gay, or that he deserves special condemnation because of it either. It just seems like an odd sort of direction to go in.

Gotcha, Joe. I have heard justifications of Ryan Murphy’s horrible plot choices on Glee that mainly boiled down to “But he’s a gay man! He can’t be a misogynist/racist/ableist!” I didn’t exactly think that’s where you were going, but that’s what it brought to mind. It is interesting that he has written problematic storylines involving gay characters, but then how many women have written sexist crap? *shrug* The sociology and psychology on the phenomena are intriguing, to be sure.

Can anyone point me to resources on what to do when a child whose parents are religious asks me about god? Or offer suggestions on how to handle it?

I would just say, “Well Kid, a lot of people have a lot of different kind of beliefs about god. Your parents think X. I think Y. When you are older, you should investigate these things and decide for yourself.”

Parrowing
Chocolate, or cocoa? I’ve never put chocolate into a chili, but I have put cocoa. I have also had chili (peppers) in my chocolate. (My gut instinct would be less-is-more, though… It’s one of those tastes that can easily be overpowering.)

I have heard justifications of Ryan Murphy’s horrible plot choices on Glee that mainly boiled down to “But he’s a gay man! He can’t be a misogynist/racist/ableist!”

I don’t know why I still watch it, but the transphobia on Glee this season has been horrible. Granted, it was probably horrible every season and I just didn’t notice, but now there is a trans character, so the jokes are much more frequent.

Parrowing: Yeah, I am right there with you. It’s another teen drama where I’m like “Ugh this is awful. *plays next episode*” Sue Sylvester used to be more enjoyable, too, when she mostly made fun of Will’s hair. Now she fat shames, slut shames, and all the rest.

There’s a trans character on Glee? Wow, I cannot even imagine the fail…

I stopped watching in S2, sometime after Karofsky tried to off himself. The plot just got so offensive on some many levels that I couldn’t do it anymore. Which sucks, because the show had such potential, and then it went into The Horrible Wasteland a la Heroes S3.

There’s a long arc wherein the above-pictured young man “turns off his humanity” and is abusive and murderous and horrible. But the young woman still loves him because “he’s under there somewhere” and she just has to save him with her love. Then he’ll stop hitting her and castigating her and killing her friends, and almost killing her. It’s a disgusting reinforcement of the idea that “He’s terrible because he loves me, and he’s got a good heart, deep down.” Though that seems to be a heavily-used trope in vampire stories.

Oh yeah – I’ve come across this countless times in pop culture. The attitude always seems to be that it is the abusive jerk that needs to be ‘saved’ from themselves, with scant consideration given to their victims. At no point is the abuser expected to take any sort of real responsibility for their actions; there is always some convenient plot device in place that makes it not really their fault…

On the plus side, there are a lot of important female characters, good and bad. And the most recent episode I watched focused on how the currently “good” vampire brother was in the wrong because he was overprotective and ignoring the woman’s judgments about her own life. So there’s that.

That is rather more progressive than I was expecting. It is something at least, as you say.

———————————————————————————————————————-

@ Improbable Joe and Portia, She who will be Horrible and Harpish;

It is odd that people who you would think would be sensitive to problematic attitudes toward groups of which they are a part often vigorously replicate those same toxic attitudes themselves. I suppose that is what internalised bigotry can do to a person.

It is also quite the coincidence that both these shows were created by the same person.

I also know what Portia is talking about when you encounter people who reflexively state that it is nothing short of impossible for a gay man to be homophobic or otherwise bigoted, or that a woman cannot be misogynistic or a black person racist – it is a strange blindspot that people have toward intersectional discrimination and internalised forms of bigotry that causes people to almost wilfully ignore what is right before their eyes because the person being discriminatory does not fit with their mental image of what the type of person who replicates that type of discriminatory attitude should be – afterall, if even a gay man can be a homophobe, a woman a misogynist and a black person a racist, then what does that say about the onlooker? Is it not possible that they themselves are not the righteous champions of tolerance and equality they think themselves to be?

Sorry, Improbable Joe, I’ve been trapped among boxes all day. But that is a niiiiiice instrument. *happy for you!*

Parrowing
I’d say use the unsweetened cocoa, and yes, a smidgeon will do. For me, it’s enough to have that hint of the warm bitterness underneath the other flavours. You might like a bit more, though, but add in small doses, because it’s easy to overdo it (like with curry and cinnamon – which is also rather nice in chili, sometimes…).

Parrowing, I’m going to chip in on the cocoa (see what I did there? Chip! Ah ha ha ha ha!) and say a little bit at a time, like curry and cinnamon, which I also like in chili sometimes.

rq, I don’t know what you’re sorry for, but I hope no boxes fell on you. :) I’m happy for me too!

What’s interesting is that the finish on the guitar is not quite but almost a match for the Les Paul I have, so they look really sweet together. Also, I saved like $300 buying it locally rather than online. Pretty amazing if you think about it.

Gregory and Portia:

I’m with you both on the whole bullshit idea of “it is ok because they’re gay/black/a woman” that gets trotted out. And Gregory, the flipside of what you’re saying is that if it is OK for a person inside the group to express toxic attitudes, it gives people outside the group permission too.

I’m with you both on the whole bullshit idea of “it is ok because they’re gay/black/a woman” that gets trotted out. And Gregory, the flipside of what you’re saying is that if it is OK for a person inside the group to express toxic attitudes, it gives people outside the group permission too.

Agreed – just look at all the MRA misogynists we get popping up around here who claim that they are not misogynistic because they can wheel out a few ‘chill girl’ women who agree with them…

Crip Dyke, MQ, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaidensays

Wish I could spend more time here, but there really is something to what they say about law school being a lot of work. And I’m terrible at figuring out how much reading is enough. I always want to read just a little more. Then there’s the kids and my partner’s trips out of town. Makes for a busy life.

BUT I do have time for a little mindless recreation, and it’s usually on Fridays. I went to a well-known if little-respected science news aggregator and found the following surprising headline:

Parrowing
I recommend, if you’re going to combine, try cinnamon+cocoa first, then add the curry. All three together don’t always work. Best to try each individually, too – that’s a lot of chili! ;)

Improbable Joe
We have relatively small boxes. No falling objects. The piano’s staying put until Sunday. And no, its colour does not match either of your guitars. ;)
Too bad you can’t play them both (the guitars) simultaneously!

… Christian Post blogger Matt Moore was first exposed by blogger Zinnia Jones on Monday after a reader alerted her to Moore’s picture on the gay-dating app Grindr. Moore’s activities might not be anyone’s business, except he publicly touts that homosexuality is a sin and an abomination to God. He even directs his anti-gay message at children.

After the exposé, Moore repented, and now he is going to extra lengths to “prevent giving into temptation” once more.

“I have sold my computer and have had someone put a lock on my phone where I cannot download apps or access the Internet through a non-filtered browser,” Moore told the Christian Post in a recent interview. “Ultimately, this isn’t the solution. My heart being captured by the grace of God and brought into humble obedience is the solution. But not taking precautions is dumb, so these are the precautions I have taken.”

When asked how he would respond to “a Christian suffering from same-sex attraction,” Moore replied that Jesus is better than sin…..

chigau, I gleefully recommend thick home made soups. I make big batches, freeze it in 16 oz freezer containers. Put one in a lunch bag, by the time lunchtime comes it is thawed, pop it in a microwave and viola! good food.

Yesterday on my ride home I was listening to PIL’s song “Albatross” as I passed a paddock of sheep. One of the sheep called out with a hearty “Baaaa.”; it was perfectly in tune with the song. Hell, it was better pitched than ol’ Johnny’s singing.

A 46 year old Canadian ex-pat, riding a bike in rural Australia in 2013 while listening on his phone to a song written by a British punk rocker in 1979 gets to hear a sheep (presumably Aussie) harmonise with that song.

Sometimes the absurdity of life isn’t annoying, sometimes it’s laugh out loud funny.

Estelethsibling sent me a copy of Far From The Tree as a birthday gift. It is on the Queue behind Manhood in America, but has anyone else read this? It is supposed to be interesting, and I’d look forward to chatting with others about it.

I’m a carer for prson with biIce ar. She has bad depression at the moment, she has also been raped twice. Ia’ve been trying to stay calm but I made a comment about rape last night which I didn’t think was inappropriate but it was. I shouldn’t have made the comment because I don’t know what it is like to be raped. After that we talked about what I said but I couldn’t calm her down.
This morning she was still upset about what I had said and she kept bringing it up because of what had happened to her in the past and because she is still depressed.
To make matters worse, I got frustrated with her and told her that she never let’s things go and I always get the blame for everything. I also said I was going to leave her, I’m not going to but I get so frustrated sometimes. I need some advice on how to handle the situation .I

Esteleth, I have not yet read “Far From The Trees,” but I read Andrew Solomon’s previous book “The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression” which was an excellent dissection of the daily horrors of depression and the fight to overcome it. Solomon is neither histrionic nor self-indulgent about the topic, and he is often searingly honest. If one suffers from chronic depression I can only recommend his book. It is not easy, but it is worth it. And he is a very good writer. I will be picking up Far From The Trees, and I hope it is as good as The Noonday Demon. I’d be interested in comparing notes.

I’m a carer for prson with biIce ar. She has bad depression at the moment, she has also been raped twice. Ia’ve been trying to stay calm but I made a comment about rape last night which I didn’t think was inappropriate but it was. I shouldn’t have made the comment because I don’t know what it is like to be raped. After that we talked about what I said but I couldn’t calm her down.
This morning she was still upset about what I had said and she kept bringing it up because of what had happened to her in the past and because she is still depressed.
To make matters worse, I got frustrated with her and told her that she never let’s things go and I always get the blame for everything. I also said I was going to leave her, I’m not going to but I get so frustrated sometimes.

*You* get frustrated? You carefully leave out what your comment was in regard to her being raped, however, it’s obvious you not only upset her, but possibly caused triggering and whatever she may suffer from as a result of those rapes. I have PTSD, sleep disorders, oneirophobia, hypnophobia and hypervigilance thanks to my being raped.

You certainly don’t seem to be demonstrating much compassion for what she’s been through, nor how the, um, insensitivity of your ‘comment’ has affected her. My suggestion would be for you to apologize, thoroughly and sincerely, to the effect of “I am so sorry for my remark, it was insensitive/stupid/ignorant/whatever, and I need to learn more so I don’t do such a thing again”, then be quiet and listen to her.

carlie—good luck, and stay warm!
–
tytanium555—an addendum to Caine’s advice: You must apologize for making the remark and not any say anything equivalent to “I’m sorry you took my remark wrong”. This is important, since it was your error, and not hers. No notpologies!
-

1) Making an “inappropriate” remark about being raped.
2) Claiming they made such a remark because they don’t know what being raped is like.*
3) Being frustrated over a rape victim being upset about said remark and needing to talk about it.
4) Saying they never “let anything go”
5) Threatening the rape victim with abandonment.

*We have heard this from any amount of rape apologists and assorted douchebags, who seem to think it’s simply not possible to relate to a rape victim without having been raped yourself. In lieu of empathy, they shrug and go with “eh, can’t have been that bad, it’s just sex” or similar.

Caine, like I said, I’m not asking you to be MORE charitable. I don’t think you were wrong in your content OR tone, and I accept that your experience informs your comments in ways that I can never understand.

I was willing to read tytanium555 as potentially not an intentionally troll. Maybe that makes me an idiot, and intent isn’t magic… but sometimes intent is useful, because a person with good intentions can be open to correction. And trolls and shitheads are rarely restrained enough to get past 3-4 posts in any case, so I’m sure we’ll both know for sure soon enough.

I couldn’t work out what you initially said your friend is suffering from. But the depression is quite clear.

First things first. Never, ever initiate a discussion, even a mention, of rape. She has to have full control of when, where and how she deals with that topic.

Depression. If you’ve read other discussions here, you’ll see the advice often given to people here who suffer from depression. When you’re feeling rotten about yourself and dwelling on negative things and not letting things go, that’s the depression talking. You’ll have to accept that it’s often the depression talking when she is negative – with the proviso that my opinion would be that she’s fully justified in being both angry and upset about you bringing up rape in conversation.

Therapy. Is either one of you able to afford / get to a therapist? could be a big help for you even if she’s not able or willing to try that for herself.

When you’re feeling rotten about yourself and dwelling on negative things and not letting things go, that’s the depression talking.

That’s not necessarily true in this case. I’m pointing this out because it’s important to understand – while depression may contribute to acting in that manner, for many rape victims, when they are triggered, need to talk about it, often for quite a long time and they need the person they are talking to to listen. It’s a way of processing what happened to you as well as a coping mechanism.

Didn’t you know just from the cast? That movie has one of the worst collection of hack non-funny people since… ummm… the last “Stiller’s buddies” or “Vaughn’s buddies” movie. Not as bad as your average “Adam Sandler’s friends’ welfare check” movie, but close.

That’s not necessarily true in this case. I’m pointing this out because it’s important to understand – while depression may contribute to acting in that manner, for many rape victims, when they are triggered, need to talk about it, often for quite a long time and they need the person they are talking to to listen. It’s a way of processing what happened to you as well as a coping mechanism.

Caine, I know. I was thinking of leading t555 by the hand to the idea that the best strategy is to shut up and listen – even if you’re not quite sure of the exactly right reason for doing that. I’m not convinced that they’re in a good place for him to do more than that if he’s dropping conversation bombs and not perceiving that it’s a really, really bad thing to do and that it’s all on his head when it goes horribly wrong.

I’m keen for him to consider the notion that he should consider therapy or some similar outlet for himself regardless of what partner feels able to cope with at the moment. Perhaps someone telling him face to face that his best approach is to shut up and listen – and then to process the feelings that arouses *elsewhere* so that partner isn’t acting as his interaction educator as well as dealing with her own problems.

One of the two new instruments is sort of a turd. :) I’ve been planning on buying a medium-cheap($450-600) Ovation acoustic-electric as my next purchase. The ones that cheap don’t come with a case… I really like to have cases for my guitars, I tend to move a lot. The cases costs around $100. Well, I paid off the Strat on layaway, and they had a used “Applause by Ovation” on sale for $120… with the $100 case included. I can hit the used case with Armor-All, and the latches are solid. And between now and when I can afford the nicer guitar, I have a cheap acoustic to beat up on.

an addendum to Caine’s advice: You must apologize for making the remark and not any say anything equivalent to “I’m sorry you took my remark wrong”. This is important, since it was your error, and not hers. No notpologies!

Can someone PLEASE inscribe this on a Clue-by-Four and pound it into Partner’s head? His apology for that remark the other night was a classic not-pology. No acknowledgement that he caused me pain, no fucking apology, just “I didn’t mean it that way, I’m sorry you took it wrong.” I called him on it and he pulled the “accept it or we’re done” card.

Fuck, fuck, FUCK, but I don’t wanna break up with him over this!

But I’d rather we were “done” than stay with someone who is either unwilling or unable to stop and fucking think before spouting off.

This break up really hit me tonight. It’s S’s Littlest’s 7th birthday today. I was not invited to the celebration, even though it’s S’s week with the kids. It hit me. I’m not part of the family anymore. I’m not…that part of his life anymore. Then I realized he’s been shutting me out of it for quite some time. (He uninvited me from the farewell dinner for his cousin who was returning to Colombia…so his parents either know we’re broken up (unlikely) or they just think I’m an asshole at this point). I wish I had something to be angry at, but I’m just…so…sad….

I’m trying really hard to not take this personally, but when he’s doing some of the same dismissive shit my ex did… it’s really hard not to. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it. But I don’t think I can take it if this continues.

Did I mention this is the healthiest relationship I’ve had in a very long time? Because… it is. And I may be clinging to it for all the wrong reasons.

All the hugs I’ve got, Portia, because I know some of what you feel. You become part of the family, and then not part of the family… and you’re emotionally invested in them and you’re cut off from them, and they forget. They forget, but you don’t.

Hello all!
At 37, I have had my share of sexual experiences.
Last night, I had the best sex of my life.
At first I told him he was in the top five. Then the top three. Tonight, as I left work, I started thinking of his competition. While there was room for improvement from them, I would change nothing about this guy. Everything I look for in a sex partner was present. I got NO sleep last night, but despite my exhaustion, I am on cloud 9!!

I should mention that S and I have talked every day since we Officially Broke Up, and have hung out and been each other’s emotional support and everything like before. It’s just this, this is a stark reminder that it’s actually over. And that I have to build a whole new…future. Which is terrifying.

Portia, please play your guitar. BTW, my little red ukulele now has a permanent place in my little red pickup truck. I’ve got it bungeed to the ceiling, right along the mid-line, and brought it down twice today, to play while waiting for my passenger.

Au.
I just tried to clean one of those corners I haven’t cleaned ever since we moved in, like the sides of the fumes hood. Now, for doing so I needed to stand on the kitchen counter. On my way down the chair fell when I tried to step on it, so I did, too, and my butt crushed the plastic box (you know, one of those really solid ones) on the way down. That hurt. Thatnkfully nothing cut, nothing broken, but that shit can wait another five years for me to clean it.

Just got back from a med call, almost killed myself with klutz. I was opening the ambulance door and didn’t notice a patch of ice. I did an impressive set of splits while clinging to the door for dear life. Managed to stay upright but just barely. I’m really really happy I didn’t reinjure my knee.

Hopefully I can finally get some sleep once I wind down from the call. Distraction was good.

Keep the coffee warm for me, WMDKitty, I’ll really want it in a few hours :)

tytanium555, still being mad about something the next day is something a lot of people do about a lot of things. That’s not holding on to something for too long. And this case warrants being upset for a long time. So if you were looking for a comparative check on normality of behavior, yes, it’s perfectly typical for them to have still been upset the next day, and the inadvertent pile-on you did could easily add a week or so to the time frame of upset and still be exactly how someone without bipolar would react.

Portia
Here’s to good health, a good sleep, and some good splits! ;) Glad you’re ok and that the call went well, sleep well, too!
Packing is going. It’s been a strange experience, because my guilt complex was reawakened recently, so all I here in the back of my head is my dad going “You’re doing it wrong!”, and I’m jumpy because I keep thinking he’ll come in, see how I’m packing my books and CDs, and tell me that I can’t do it like that, because it’s wrong. Even though he’s in Canada, and will see nothing of this move. Eck. Progress is good, though. Clearing out tomorrow afternoon. That feels strange.

Pre-sales of tickets to the European Sceptics Congress in Stockholm, Sweden, 23-25 August 2013, are commencing soon.

I’m sure there’s going to be a big bunch of Pharyngulords and -ladies attending, so I’d be delighted to hear of people’s plans in regard to travel, accommodation, possible extracurricular meet-ups and such. There’s been some discussion on the topic in FB, but I’m sure there are many here who don’t use FaceBook, so whaddya say, pardners? If there are enough ‘yea’ votes (tentative ones will be heard, too), I’m going to go ahead and see if I can find a suitable flat to rent somewhere relatively central, since hotels can be rather expensive, especially to students and other financially challenged among us – not to mention the fact that even if you could afford the fanciest 5 star hotel in Stockholm, staying with a bunch of Pharynguloids would still be a pretty cool alternative!

Since I visit the Lounge nowadays at irregular intervals only, feel free to send me an e-mail at minniethefinn at gmail dottie com and tell me what sort of plans you have. It goes without saying that I will not publish any of the info given tome at any stage without explicit permission from you, except maybe in statistical form sans anything which might help recognize an individual.

Minnie The Finn, you will be a receiving an email from me soon :-) BTW… how does one find this Pharyngula FB group?

*

Oh, Portia… I know you’ve gone to bed and hopefully when you get up you’ll be feeling better. You didn’t fail at all, and you are lovable. I have opinions on his behavior that I will keep to myself (mostly) so as to not bring up any more bad feelings, but yeah…. not digging it. *hugs*

*

Yay for Tony!

*

rq, does it help for someone to say “You’re doing it right!” Because seriously, you have been working incredibly hard getting this done. Good job!

The FB group was originally founded a good while back when PZ sent us all into the naughty corner for some reason which eludes my memory (or maybe he was doing a spring cleaning and we got under his foot).

I’m not a mod for the group, and for very obvious reasons, it is closed and soooper seeekret. But I’ve passed on your inquiry to the higher powers; expect to be served with an invite* at some stage (unless you’ve managed to piss off a noticeable portion of the regulars at some stage :D

*They would naturally need to know who YOU are in FB, amirite? Add that to your e-mail, eh?

Didn’t you know just from the cast? That movie has one of the worst collection of hack non-funny people since… ummm… the last “Stiller’s buddies” or “Vaughn’s buddies” movie. Not as bad as your average “Adam Sandler’s friends’ welfare check” movie, but close.

Yeah I knew better and went against one of my cardinal rules of movies, never watch a Ben stiller movie.

. It’s been a strange experience, because my guilt complex was reawakened recently, so all I here in the back of my head is my dad going “You’re doing it wrong!”

with my therapist this week, and he attested me that I was a world champion.
Because I call the part that says nasty shit “the monkey brain”. And actually one of the big breakthroughs was to identify the monkey brain, to understand that it’s lying and to catch myself when I’m heeding it.
But what do I do when I catch it? Do I say “good job, well done, you correctly identified the nasty monkey brain and now you can stop it”?
No, I go “you stupid shit, you let yourself fall for the monkey brain again, will you never learn? No wonder you’re not getting anywhere” Which is probably the monkey brain, too.

Finding a sperm donor is far more nerve-wracking than I gave it credit for when we were just idly “window shopping” online catalogs. Part of it has been this rather complicated power struggle between me and my partner. He’s open to adoption and fostering, but he really, really wants for me to carry at least one of our children and for him to have the deciding vote on the sperm donor, since he can’t knock me up himself. I found out he’d told a friend–without discussing it with me first–that we were doing IVF with me carrying and his egg.

I understand his frustration and hurt. I am very, very sorry that he can’t just father a child like any other fertile cis guy. But I feel like my part of this is being slowly reduced to “walking incubator.” I’m really getting frustrated and I know he is, too. We want to start a family, but finding the middle ground between him feeling involved and me feeling in control of my own body is proving difficult. I just want to be his partner, not a valuable natural resource.

Maybe I’m being overly sensitive. Maybe this is how straight couples who need to use artificial insemination all are. I don’t know.

I have no experience with this, but it doesn’t sound to me like you are being overly sensitive.
I don’t know how best do it, but I hope you find a way to tell him that his focus on his own needs over yours is hurting you, especially since he’s signing you up for the 9 months stint. Since it wasn’t very clear from your post, do you even prefer to give birth or would you rather adopt?

[Just a general heads-up: some of those context-denying rascals at the sl*mep*t are collecting pullquotes indicative of the ‘violent fantasies’ of FtB commenters. It’s some kind of gotcha-hypcrisy thing, as usual. Bullshit but you should know.]

I will sign on enthusiastically to the last two, but Stiller gets a lifetime pass from me for this. ymmv.

Since it wasn’t very clear from your post, do you even prefer to give birth or would you rather adopt?

I don’t have a strong preference, except that carrying a child will be much, much, much simpler and cheaper. Since we don’t have a lot of money, are atheists, and don’t fit the culturally approved mold, I know adoption could be really difficult for us. The thing is, I’m also taking on all the risks to carry a child. I’m willing, but it’s still my body going through it all. I’m doing the heavy lifting on this and I need that acknowledged.

I had suggested a lifelong friend of mine as a sperm donor. He already has a healthy child, looks a bit like my partner, and he’s a great guy. Seemed like a good choice. One day he annoyed my partner and my partner declared, “I’m not letting his sperm anywhere near you!”

It was very dehumanizing, like I was some object he was deciding how to share. It’s difficult. I just have to keep working to make him understand that I do want him as involved as any biological father, but this is my body we’re talking about.

MM: although IANASC, that’s *exactly* the kind of crap some straight couples go through when dealing with any kind of assisted fertility… a sort of personal reinforcement of stereotypical gender roles. Many an infertile cis guy takes it as an immediate threat to their manhood. I too agree that you’re not being oversensitive in any way shape or form… if anything, my inclination is to get angry on your behalf and get my call-out guns ready.

Ugh. And correcting my own language: I’m not carrying a child. I’ll be hosting a fetus. It’ll be a child once it’s out of me and I have my body back. The problem is coming from treating my body as “child carrier” instead of “Mellow Monkey.”

Damn. I wish I had some good advice. Most I can say is to let him know about your feelings. I get that you two have to compromise, but it’s not really fair compromise when everything is being done his way.

You know, in that sentence where I asked whether you even wanted to give birth, I first wanted to write “carry a child”, but then decided on going with the former because “carry a child” struck me as wrong. It’s just what you automatically want to say, right?

MM
I don’t think you’re overreacting.
You’re willing to take the risks, it’s your body and your final say.
I understand that he wants to have a word in it since both of you want to become parents to that child, but really, you’re not some vehicle for achieving that.

I found out he’d told a friend–without discussing it with me first–that we were doing IVF with me carrying and his egg.

I’m imagining what would happen if some friend asked me about the house-move we’re doing that Mr. told him about without me being in the know. Which is a lot less personal and objectifying.
And it wouldn’t be pretty.

The Mellow Monkey
You and your partner need to think long and hard and have some very honest discussions before you actually involve other humans.
If you are having a power-struggle over sperm-and-egg, it will continue after the baby is born.

Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition wants the federal government to end its “Save America’s Treasures Grants” to the National Cathedral because the church decided to perform same-sex marriages. While same-sex marriage is legal in Washington D.C., where the historic Episcopal church is located, the FFC claims that the cathedral is undermining the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and therefore should not receive federal money “until such time that it ceases the practice of homosexual ‘marriage’ certification.”…

MM: yeah, this is complicated, and partner is trying to whap you with his male privilege. Before you go into this, you should work out a mutually amicable solution, obviously. And think, as Lynna said.

chigau and thunk, I agree. That’s one of the reasons I don’t want to rush through these decisions. We need to understand each other and understand what compromises are being made and where those compromises will take us in the future. I don’t want this conflict to end up projected onto a child.
—
That’s a fantastic post from Jadehawk. She really articulated a lot of problems I had with that original post.

And it’s reminded me that I need to read more of the Vorkosigan Saga. I picked up Ethan of Athos after someone mentioned it here and just finished it the other night.

Good article that summarizes some of the most outrageous bits in Jenna Miscavige Hill’s new book. She’s the niece of Scientology leader David Miscavige. The book is “Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape”.

A few excerpts:

A major part of class time was spent memorizing quotes by Hubbard. …

When she was 13, Miscavige Hill says she required to fill out a life history form. In addition to supplying her Social Security number, all her ID numbers, credit-card number, information about her bank account, and nonexistent criminal record, she was required to fill out a questionnaire asking who all of her relatives were and how they felt about Scientology. She was also told to “detail every single sexual experience, including masturbating, that I ever had.”…

She says that Hill told her that John Travolta “was very appreciative of Sea Org staff members at the center and their hard work,” and treated them nicely. Miscavige Hill writes that he also told her that during his marriage to Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise was actually considered a “Potential Trouble Source” because his wife was not committed to the church. The labeling apparently interfered with his progress in the organization at the time, and as a result he wasn’t actively involved….

Chas:
The heads up is welcome.
****
Mellow Monkey:
:(
::extends hand to give present::
Hug wrapped in chocolate covered bacon…?
****
I really want my internet back on. The teal deer I just wrote in the email thread took over an hour on my cell…

Katherine Lorraine, Chaton du Mort, “very dehydrated” is dangerous for a cat and it’s a good thing you took your kitty to the vet. You did the right thing. Did kitty receive subcutaneous fluids? Those are easy to administer at home if the cat will stay still for you, if more treatment is needed

Good morning! Or, well… not. My wife is working on a Saturday (and Sunday too), which sucks and ruins all of our weekend plans. She’s really stuck between a rock and a hard place: if she works a lot she’s physically and emotionally drained but otherwise in a good place mentally, if she works less she’s less tired but the tasks pile up and she starts to panic and think she can’t do the job. I’m hoping she can figure out a better balance while she whips the place into shape.

Now let me get caught up:

Portia: I think you need a clean break from S. Right now the constant contact is keeping an S-shaped hole in your heart that can’t heal otherwise. Sort of an “I can’t miss you if you won’t go away” sort of thing, except S is kind of already gone in the way that matters. I know it sucks, but the sooner you do it the better. And play your guitar! We’ve apparently got terrible Lounge music to write, and I don’t want to be terrible on my own! :)

Giliell, you seem to have found the only potentially acceptable use for the phrase “butt hurt,” so congrats? I’m glad nothing was seriously hurt or broken, and I’m only going to say this once: ladder. With rubberized non-skid feet. Maybe two, a small one and a large one. I dream of a 12′ ladder for when I hang Xmas lights this year.

WMDKitty *Plays “Unforgiven” intro on new acoustic guitar* Yeah, the “real” metalheads didn’t like The Black Album, but I thought it was fine, and has some cool riffs on it. *swaps guitars to play “Wherever I May Roam”*

rq, yay for packing and moving, boo for your dad’s voice in your head. Sometimes that voice does fade… never quite goes away, but it gets small enough that you can shout it down. That goes for you too Giliell

MM, one of the few things my wife and I have ever fought about is one of us committing the other person to things without discussing it first. If I get seriously bent out of shape when my wife makes vacation plans without telling me first, then you’re in no way being overly sensitive when you’re not being treated like you’re 100% in charge of your body.

Ogvorbis: “Real” guitar? You’re not going to let that go, are you? *grins* I’ve got the Taylor 2013 guitar guide on my desk, and I’m currently drooling over a $7000 limited edition Presentation Series with the most ridiculously ornate abalone inlay I’ve seen in a long time. Oh, and here’s a hint: I play electric so that I can use effects to hide my terrible playing. It becomes a big swampy mess, but it hides my mistakes just fine! :)

Tony, is there any way to… what the fuck is the word?… “tether”! Can you tether your phone to your computer somehow, so you can use the full-sized keyboard?

Markita Lynda
While this is good advice in retrospect, I seriously question whether I will now be able to make it there in time for the meeting at all; I travel by bike, and my knee has been giving me a bit of trouble this week, which slows me down. I will have a chat with the union steward about it, though.

I think you need a clean break from S. Right now the constant contact is keeping an S-shaped hole in your heart that can’t heal otherwise.

I’m about as far as you can get from being a relationship expert, but this doesn’t sound right to me. Do these things really work like that for everyone?
I would expect that the best way to slip from a relationship into a friendship would depend on both (or more) parties’ personalities and the kind of connection they have.

*Plays “Unforgiven” intro on new acoustic guitar* Yeah, the “real” metalheads didn’t like The Black Album, but I thought it was fine, and has some cool riffs on it. *swaps guitars to play “Wherever I May Roam”*

I have a soft spot for Nothing Else Matters, because it’s probably the only thing even mildly difficult that I can actually play. (I used to be able to do “Over The Hills and Far Away,” but I’ve been out of practice for too long.)

Beatrice, I might be wrong on the relationship advice… my expertise is based on blowing up literally dozens of relationships over the years! :) or :( depending on how you look at it.

On the other hand, Portia (chime in any time here while we talk about you!) says “S and I have talked every day since we Officially Broke Up, and have hung out and been each other’s emotional support and everything like before.” My advice is based on the idea that to slip from a relationship into a friendship is unreasonable if you keep doing so many of the same things “like before”.

It isn’t “like before” and it is easier to accept that emotionally when there’s a clean line between “before” and “now.” That’s not to say that you can’t be friends, but I think an actual break is needed. How long and to what extent? That’s up to the people in the relationship, like you said.

rq
I’m sure you are doing great at the packing, it sounds like you’re doing magnificently. Exciting that tomorrow is THE DAY!

Parrowing

Oh, Portia… I know you’ve gone to bed and hopefully when you get up you’ll be feeling better. You didn’t fail at all, and you are lovable. I have opinions on his behavior that I will keep to myself (mostly) so as to not bring up any more bad feelings, but yeah…. not digging it. *hugs*

Thanks for this. Makes me feel…understood.

iJoe:
You may be right about needing space. I don’t know. I feel like I don’t know how to do this right. Most days I am okay with the stepped-down version of our relationship. I guess I’ll just keep seeing how I feel.

Oh, and one way or another, I will pick up my guitar. This week. There, I set myself a goal. I will play the two chords I remember and I will make my fingertips sore :)

Beatrice

I think you need a clean break from S. Right now the constant contact is keeping an S-shaped hole in your heart that can’t heal otherwise.

I’m about as far as you can get from being a relationship expert, but this doesn’t sound right to me. Do these things really work like that for everyone?
I would expect that the best way to slip from a relationship into a friendship would depend on both (or more) parties’ personalities and the kind of connection they have.

I appreciate this perspective. (Possibly because I’m looking for justifications to continue being friends…) But seriously, thanks for your input.

Ogvorbis
Thanks for the hugs!

MellowMonkey
So many hugs. I will join the chorus of “You’re not oversensitive.” That is so sucky, especially when you have to navigate a partner’s extremely sensitive spots while you seek to have your needs met. Maybe writing yourself a script for a sit-down conversation about it would make you feel better?

It isn’t “like before” and it is easier to accept that emotionally when there’s a clean line between “before” and “now.” That’s not to say that you can’t be friends, but I think an actual break is needed.

You make good points, Joe. I don’t know if it helps, but we aren’t hanging out as much, so there is some amount of space there. I no longer assume we’re going to hang out or talk with certain regularity. I guess that’s the biggest difference in our relationship: I have no expectations that will be dashed, and he has no obligations that will stress him out. So I guess we’re both happier?

AFAIK, the tradition of ships being ‘she’ stems from them symbolically being married to Poseidon, but I could be wrong about that.

Interesting!

I’m off to help a friend take down wallpaper in his newish house. Talk atcha later, and thanks for the advice, again. Now I’m thinking of the weird witches, but they spoke more in riddle than paradox, ha.

Yes, as you suspected, the LDS Church was largely responsible for convincing the Boy Scouts of America to delay their policy change that allow local troops to decide when it came to including gay scouts and troop leaders.

MM, I’m totally spitballing here, but it sounds like your partner is taking the “this makes the most sense and is most efficient” route, so their not paying attention to you could be more out of negligence rather than being controlling. Obviously he is being controlling, but it might be by accident, if that makes any sense. One partner sees a route as the logical obvious route, and then doesn’t realize that the other partner doesn’t see things the same way. But talking to someone else about it first? Definitely a crappy thing to do, and sounds like a discussion on who gets told what is in order.

Science fair was adorable, and for once my luck of the draw was to get all really stellar projects. Whee!

Thanks all for the words re: guilty voices. Things were fine until recently, but the way I got around it was by saying to myself, ‘These are my damn books and my damn CDs, and I can pack them any way I like!’ I make sure to say them in the voice of the 1995 Miss Eliza Bennett, too.
As it is, we’re spending our first night in the house tonight, with a cat who peed all over himself on the trip over. But he doesn’t seem to be inclined to hide behind something for three weeks this time around. Which is nice, but stinky.

Portia
My first instinct would be along the lines of IJoe‘s advice, but Beatrice is also right – it really depends on the kind of relationship you and S have. Personally, I find the break and then resume easier, because it gives me time to step back on my own and think things through without being constantly reminded of my past/current feelings. You know, sort of get some perspective and shelve the things that are gone, and make a note to myself to re-start the friendship from the beginning. Otherwise I find I keep dragging old-relationship things into the current one, and that’s never, ever good. *hugs*